11 Windows performance counters

Windows performance counter can be effectively monitored using perf_counter[].

For example:

perf_counter["\Processor(0)\Interrupts/sec"]

or

perf_counter["\Processor(0)\Interrupts/sec", 10]

In order to get full list of performance counter available for monitoring you may run:

typeperf -qx

Unfortunately, depending on local settings naming of the performance counters can be different on different Windows servers. This introduces certain problem when creating a template for monitoring number of Windows machines having different locales.

Every performance counter can be translated into numeric form, which is unique and exactly the same regardless of language settings.

Run regedit, then find HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Perflib\009. The registry entry contains information like:

1
       1847
       2
       System
       4
       Memory
       6
       % Processor Time
       10
       File Read Operations/sec
       12
       File Write Operations/sec
       14
       File Control Operations/sec
       16
       File Read Bytes/sec
       18
       File Write Bytes/sec
       ....

So, in order to translate string name of a performance counter into numeric form, find corresponding numbers for each part of the performance counter, like:

System → 2
       % Processor Time → 6
       \System\% Processor Time

Then use these numbers to create a numeric format:

\2\6

1 Performance counter parameters

In order to define a new parameter for monitoring performance counters, one line can be added to configuration file of Zabbix agent and the agent must be restarted. For example:

   PerfCounter=UserPerfCounter1,"\Memory\Page Reads/sec",30
          or
          PerfCounter=UserPerfCounter2,"\4\24",30

Then it is possible to use "UserPerfCounter1" and "UserPerfCounter2" as usual item checks in the frontend or elsewhere, simalar to UserParameter.