Richard Hicks' Forefront TMG Blog

In the first part of this two-part series we used PAL and Performance Monitor to collect data. In this second part I’ll demonstrate how to use PAL to analyze the data and generate a report.

Analyzing the Data

Once you’ve collected the necessary log data you are ready to analyze it using PAL. To begin, open the PAL tool, click Next or select the Counter Log tab, then choose the path to the log file collected using Performance Monitor.

Select Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway for the threshold file and choose Next.

To accurately analyze the data, PAL needs to know specific details about the system where the log data was collected. Highlight and answer each question and choose Next.

Accept the default settings for Analysis Interval and All Counter Stats.

By default, PAL generates reports in HTML format and places them in the My Documents\PAL Reports folder. Here you can change the default file location and also select the option to generate reports in XML format.

Behind the scenes PAL leverages a complex PowerShell script to perform analysis and generate reports.

To perform the analysis and generate a report, click Finish. Optionally you can add the analysis job to the job queue or execute the analysis and restart the wizard with the same settings. You can also select the option to execute as a low priority process.

PAL begins analyzing the log data and once complete it generates a report in the format specified. You can view a sample report here.

The report is very detailed and includes alerts when a particular counter exceeds a predetermined threshold. The alerts are color coded to easily identify when a threshold has been exceeded. The report also includes a brief explanation of each counter, a graphical chart of the data analyzed, and statistical data relating to the counter.

PAL is a wonderful tool that greatly simplifies the process of analyzing Performance Monitor data. It is not, however, a magic wand that will solve all of your performance issues automatically. Although the tool provides a wealth of information in a clear and concise format, it is still up to the administrator to understand the data and ultimately determine how best to resolve the issue. PAL just makes that task much easier.

Forefront TMG Performance Troubleshooting with PAL v2.x Part 1 – Data Collection
Forefront TMG Performance Troubleshooting with PAL v2.x Part 2 – Data Analysis and Reporting