Detecting System Bottlenecks and Log Management

Introduction

Welcome to the Detecting System Bottlenecks and Log Management Practice Lab. In this module, you will be provided with the instructions and devices needed to develop your hands-on skills.

Learning Outcomes

In this module, you will complete the following exercises:

• Exercise 1 - Monitor System Performance
• Exercise 2 - Detecting System Bottlenecks

After completing this lab, you will be able to:

• Use Performance Monitor to create charts
• Change the counter for the physical disk
• Change the Data Presentation Format
• Create a Data Collector Set log file
• Create and import Data Collector Set Templates
• Download tools to create system bottlenecks
• Run a program that will create a system bottleneck in the computer’s processor

Exam Objectives

The following exam objectives are covered in this lab:

• N10-007 3.1: Given a scenario, use appropriate documentation and diagrams to manage the network (Network configuration and performance baselines)
• N10-007 3.3: Explain common scanning, monitoring, and patching processes and summarize their expected output (Processes, Log reviewing)
• N10-007 3.3: Explain common scanning, monitoring, and patching processes and summarize their expected output (Patch management, Reviewing baselines)
• N10-007 3.3: Explain common scanning, monitoring, and patching processes and summarize their expected output (Event management, Notifications)
• N10-007 3.3: Explain common scanning, monitoring, and patching processes and summarize their expected output (Event management, Alerts)
• N10-007 3.3: Explain common scanning, monitoring, and patching processes and summarize their expected output (Event management, SIEM)
• N10-007 4.2: Explain authentication and access controls (Authorization, authentication, and accounting, Auditing and logging)

Lab Duration

It will take approximately 1 hour to complete this lab.

Exercise 1 - Monitor System Performance

Regular monitoring of your computing systems helps ensure their best performance at all times as well as avoid any abrupt breakdowns that can disrupt the operations. Windows OS offers built-in tools to monitor system performance on Windows workstations. These tools measure the system activity to gather and store data about the system states. This data can then be depicted as charts, reports, and log files to analyze, trace, and automate the system state monitoring. The monitoring results can be viewed in real time as well as analyzed at a later time.

Performance Monitor is an application where you can specify the system parameters to track. Performance Monitor then captures the relevant values at specified time intervals. You can use these value-logs to monitor application and hardware performance in real time, specify the format (charts/graphs/reports) to present the data, define the thresholds to raise alerts and initiate automatic actions, and view the past performance data.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this exercise, you will be able to:

• Use Performance Monitor to create charts
• Change the counter for the physical disk
• Change the Data Presentation Format
• Create a Data Collector Set log file
• Create and import Data Collector Set Templates

Exercise 2 - Detecting System Bottlenecks

Bottlenecks happen when a computer resource (CPU, disk, memory, network interface, and process) reaches its capacity, causing the performance of the entire system to slow down. Bottlenecks are usually caused by insufficient or misconfigured resource or faulty system components and frequent requests for resources by an application.

Regular system monitoring can help you detect bottlenecks and manage the same to avoid performance deterioration. To setup an effective system monitoring, specify counters, define baselines, and configure the monitor alarms to raise a flag as soon as a baseline is surpassed.

To optimize your computer’s performance, develop baselines for each system. A performance baseline is the expected level of system performance as measured through a performance monitoring application. The baseline can be defined in a policy or collected from actual system activity.

Learning Outcomes

After completing this exercise, you will be able to:

• Download tools to create system bottlenecks
• Run a program that will create a system bottleneck in the computer’s processor