Resource Monitor and Performance Monitor - Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Performance Tuning - page 84

Monitoring memory (RAM) usage
Monitoring the memory (RAM) usage of your database server is very important. There are a
number of factors that can cause all your memory to be consumed. This is why you should
monitor memory usage on a regular basis.
In this recipe, we will use Reliability and Performance Monitor to capture memory
(RAM)-related usage statistics.
Getting ready
Before starting the recipe, it's important for you to know how to interpret the values of the
following performance counters that we will be using in this example:
F Memory:Available MBytes: This provides the amount of memory available on
the system.
F Memory:Pages/sec: This provides the number of pages that were read from, or
written to, the disk, due to hard page faults.
F Paging File:% Usage: This provides the amount, in percentage, of the paging that
has occurred.
F SQL Server:Buffer Manager:Buffer cache hit ratio: This provides the amount, in
percentage, of the SQL Server data read from the cache and not from the disk.
F SQL Server:Buffer Manager:Page life expectancy: This provides the average
number of seconds during which data pages reside in memory.
F SQL Server:Memory Manager:Memory Grants Pending: This provides the number
of processes that are waiting for the workplace memory grant.
The following are the prerequisites for this recipe:
F An instance of SQL Server 2012 Developer or Enterprise Evaluation edition
F Performance Monitor, as installed with Windows OS
How to do it...
To monitor memory usage statistics, follow the steps given here:
1. To start Reliability and Performance Monitor, go to Control Panel | Administrative
Tools and double-click on the icon for Reliability and Performance Monitor.
2. When Reliability and Performance Monitor is started, to switch to Performance
Monitor view, click on the Performance Monitor node under the Monitoring Tools
node in the left-hand side console tree.