Performance Monitoring.
One of the most common complaints from end user is “my computer is running slowly”.
Since speed is highly speculative it can be a difficult thing to trouble shoot.
It is therefore important that performance monitoring be carried out in a structured way rather than on an ad-hoc basis.

Monitoring Strategy.
When a System is running a baseline should be created .
This shows the ‘Normal’ level of activity for key performance areas.
This baseline should be stored away from the system for future use,
it should also be updated regularly since the way a system is utilised will change over time
The performance tab is perhaps the most commonly used screen,
It shows basic information about CPU utilisation and memory usage.
The network tab allows us to see the current amount of traffic going across our networks connections.

Task manager does not allow us to store data for later analysis ,
We cannot create a baseline, It is a snapshot of how the system is performing at a certain moment in time.
This cannot be compared with a baseline easily, It is down to experience to interpret the results.
Not only does performance monitor allow us to create a baseline it also allows us to capture data over time,
This is useful since we can then carry out trend analysis.
In simple terms “spot patterns that reoccur over a period of time”.

Should a system now be reported as running slow at a later date we have something to compare performance against.
We create new performance data and compare it with the baseline,
This should clearly indicate the area of the system that is causing the slowdown.

How can we monitor performance.
Windows provides a number of ways of accessing basic information about the systems performance,
The most commonly used utilities are
1. Task Manager
2. Performance Manager