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Monitoring Performance of the Data Flow Engine

SQL Server 2005 Integration Services (SSIS) includes a set of performance counters for monitoring the performance of the data flow engine.

The following table describes the performance counters.

Performance counter Description

BLOB bytes read

The number of bytes of binary large object (BLOB) data that the data flow engine has read from all sources.

BLOB bytes written

The number of bytes of BLOB data that the data flow engine has written to all destinations.

BLOB files in use

The number of BLOB files that the data flow engine currently is using for spooling.

Buffer memory

The amount of memory that is in use. This may include both physical and virtual memory. When this number is larger than the amount of physical memory, the Buffers Spooled count rises as an indication that memory swapping is increasing. Increased memory swapping slows performance of the data flow engine.

Buffers in use

The number of buffer objects, of all types, that all data flow components and the data flow engine is currently using.

Buffers spooled

The number of buffers currently written to the disk. If the data flow engine runs low on physical memory, buffers not currently used are written to disk and then reloaded when needed.

Flat buffer memory

The total amount of memory, in bytes, that all flat buffers use. Flat buffers are blocks of memory that a component uses to store data. A flat buffer is a large block of bytes that is accessed byte by byte.

Flat buffers in use

The number of flat buffers that the Data flow engine uses. All flat buffers are private buffers.

Private buffer memory

The total amount of memory in use by all private buffers. A buffer is not private if the data flow engine creates it to support data flow. A private buffer is a buffer that a transformation uses for temporary work only. For example, the Aggregation transformation uses private buffers to do its work.

Private buffers in use

The number of buffers that transformations use.

Rows read

The number of rows that a source produces. The number does not include rows read from reference tables by the Lookup transformation.

Rows written

The number of rows offered to a destination. The number does not reflect rows written to the destination data store.

You use the Performance Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to create a log that captures performance counters.

  1. In Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, and then click Performance.

  2. In the Performance dialog box, expand Performance Logs and Alerts, right-click Counter Logs, and then click New Log Settings. Type the name of the log. For example, type MyLog.

  3. In the MyLog dialog box, click Add Counters.

  4. In the Add Counters dialog box, select SQL Server:SSISPipeline in the Performance object box.

  5. Select the All Counters check box, select Add, and then close the dialog boxes.

    You must start the Performance Logs and Alerts service using a local account or a domain account that is a member of the Administrators group.