If you are hosting your web application in Windows Azure, here are some tips regarding monitoring your servers and application during a LoadStorm test that were provided to me from a Microsoft software engineer:

Sharing with you the steps for performance testing/bottleneck identification. Attaching all the requisite documents and counters.

Explanation of perfmon counters - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905154(SQL.80).aspx

Other tools we use:

• Logman (built into system) – to control performance counters
• Logparser – when you want to evaluate http://logparserplus.com/
• DMVs - http://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/ScriptCenter/en-us/

Ways to Use Perfmon Counters Config File via Command

I was recently reading an article on Yahoo entitled, "MS: No repeat of Xbox Live holiday meltdown (hopefully)". What immediately struck me as interesting was the fact that Microsoft is still relying on hope to avoid another black eye with their customers.

One of the biggest issues a database administrator deals with is the impending performance issues that seem to hit an expanding environment. Smaller businesses can usually handle the simple problems that may interrupt daily activities, but large or medium sized businesses need real solutions to quickly fix problems since performance issues equal lower revenue.

Microsoft SQL Server 2000 and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 do not inherently support load balancing out of the box like most information technology experts might think. They have intrinsic tools that allow for scalability and load balancing, however, they do not have the defined load balancing functions that are commonly known among network administrators. Instead, Microsoft SQL Server 2005 comes with some tools to help with scalability and performance for your enterprise organization.

Microsoft Clustering Services (MSCS)