In my previous post, I spoke of "Normalized" and "Non-Normalized" CPU utilization values:
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TABLE:Foreword: Windows is not "process" based OS (like Linux) but rather "thread" based so all of the numbers relating to CPU usage are approximations. I did made a "proper" CPU per Process looping and summing up Threads counter (https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa394279%28v=vs.85%29.aspx) based on PID but that proved too slow given I have ~1 sec to deal with everything. CPU utilization using RAW counters with 1s delay between samples proved to produce a bit more reliable result than just reading Formatted counters but, again, too slow for my 1s ticks (collect sample, wait 1s, collect sample, do the math takes longer than 1s). Thus I use PerfFormatted counters in version 0.9RC.

Win32_PerfRawData_PerfProc_Process;  …

Welcome to the final blog in Windows PerfCounters and Powershell series and sorry for the delay. The purpose of this blog is to explain the inner workings of top-script.ps1 script and practical usage of Performance counters on Windows through Powershell. It is intended for people who want Linux top - like tool on Windows.

The script is a part of and available in our existing benchmarking package (dbt2-0.37.50.10) developed by Mikael Ronstrom.

On Top:If you ever did benchmarking on Linux or simply wondered "where did all my resources go", top is your best friend. Since this post is not about Linux, you can google "Linux top explained" for more details.


On Performance counters:To learn about Windows PerfCounters, please refer to my previous …

So far, I talked of WMI, CIM, WQL, System.Diagnostics.PerformanceCounterCategory, perf-counter data organization and flavour. Now it's time to look at some performance counters I deem important for my use-case more closely.
Note: List of available Counters for Get-Counter command
Get-Counter -ListSet * | Sort-Object CounterSetName | Format-Table CounterSetName

Basic concepts:I will introduce basic concepts of Processor, Core and CPU now to help you follow the text. Let us use this convention:

• "Processor" is a piece of hardware you connect to a slot on the motherboard.
• "Physical Core" is a physical computing unit built into the "Processor".
• "Virtual Core" is a virtual computing unit built on top of "Physical Core" (i.e. HT is ON).
• "CPU" is a computing unit inside the "Processor", either physical or virtual.

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