I Want to Know if Performance Is Good or Bad

The answer to this question depends almost entirely on the type of work that you do in your organization. However, there are some rules of thumb, that it makes good sense to follow in almost any type of organization:

• On hard disks each logical disk should have a minimum of 15% free space. Logical disks are the volumes (for example C:\ and D:) on a physical disk. Also, the value of the % Disk Time performance counter (that's a measurement of how often the disk is busy) should be below 90%.
• File server response times should be lower than 10 milliseconds (ms)
• If the latency between a computer and a file server increases by 1 ms, the ability to transfer data decreases by approximately 7%
• Domain Controller (DC) response times should be lower than 10 ms
• Domain Name Service (DNS) response times should be lower than 50 ms
• MS SQL response times should ideally be lower than 10 ms, depending on the nature of the database
• The number of retransmissions (that is the number of times that data packets are re-sent because the original packets were damaged or lost) should always be as low as possible, because retransmissions severely affect your ability to use bandwidth efficiently
• If you use Citrix (a virtual environment that lets users run Windows applications from a remote server just as if the applications ran on users' own computers), Citrix latency is OK if it's below 100 ms. 100 ms roughly corresponds to the time it takes to blink your eyes. Citrix latency up to 200 ms can still provide a reasonable user experience. A Citrix latency above 200 ms will be distracting and lead to the infamous feeling of sticky keys—a phenomenon where the system lags so much after the user's keystrokes that it feels as if the keys stick to the user's fingers.

Many of the default thresholds that PerformanceGuard uses are based on these rules of thumb, and several PerformanceGuard graphs are able to show such thresholds, so that you're able to quickly determine whether performance is good or bad.

If you need to set up more thresholds, see Manage Thresholds and Events. You can only do this if you're a PerformanceGuard administrator.

If you need a deeper analysis of whether thresholds could be optimized to suit exactly your industry, your PerformanceGuard consultant will be happy to help. Simply contact CapaSystems to set up a visit from your consultant.