Performance monitoring dedicated server

How do we monitor so we know if we need a 2nd server?

[blueheelers]

We currently have a dedicated Win2003/IIS web server that hosts several websites. Some of the websites are basic ASP company websites and some are full ASP.Net web applications.

We are looking for a way to monitor the key metrics (memory, cpu, etc) so that we can know how much of the server is being used. We don't want to buy a 2nd server if it isn't needed, however, we don't want downtime issues to deal with either.

How do others monitor their IIS servers to know if they need more hardware?

Thanks

[TheNige]

you can start by using PEFMON which is included with Windows. You can monitor lots of performance counters.

Start-->Run--Perfmon

It is deciphering the counters that is the fun part

[pageoneresults]

Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor
[microsoft.com...]

Microsoft ® Windows Server ™ 2003 Performance Advisor provides several specialized reports, including a System Overview (focusing on CPU usage, Memory usage, busy files, busy TCP clients, top CPU consumers) and reports for server roles such as Active Directory, Internet Information System (IIS), DNS, Terminal Services, SQL, print spooler, and others.

[aspdaddy]

Perfmon is a good tool but you really need to know what you are doing to select the right counters.

Generally you will know by the page load time and around key times like 9AM, 1PM etc if you have a problem it will become obvious. Also just checking event logs each day will give you some warning.

[blueheelers]

pageoneresults

Thanks for the link. We installed that and will be monitoring things over the next few weeks. Thanks to everyone else who also provided helpful information.

Thanks!