What is the best way to interpret Perfmon analysis into application specific observations/data?

Question

Many of us have used Perfmon tool to do performance analysis. Especially with .Net counters, but there are so many variables going on in Perfmon, that it always becomes hard to interpret Perfmon results in to valuable feedback about my application. I want to use perfmon, (not a tool like Ants Profiler etc) but how do I accurately interpret the observations?

Any inputs are welcome.

Answer 1

A good explanation about a few .net counters can be found here

Answer 2

I use the Performance Analysis of Logs (PAL) tool: http://www.codeplex.com/PAL

It's not an "official" Microsoft tool, but I believe the author works for Microsoft. The project seems to be fairly active.

In addition to the canned threshold files provided (which are pretty good), you can write your own thresholds to analyze what your app needs. The generation of the HTML report with charts is also very nice.

Uses the MS LogParser took and MS Office Web Components. .NET 2.0 is required for the (optional) GUI.

Answer 3

Take a look at SmartMon (www.perfmonanalysis.com).