Although every site performs differently based on hardware and software configurations, as well as client data processing loads, there are some general guidelines that can be used to help monitor and tune Configuration Manager site servers for best performance.
Disk Utilization in Configuration Manager Sites
On a Configuration Manager central site server computer, disk utilization is very high because of the high read/write nature of Configuration Manager site processes.
In general, the basic flow of data from child sites to a parent site in a Configuration Manager site hierarchy is as follows:
- Data files received from clients and child
sites during site-to-site communication are stored in the
appropriate site server inbox directory.
- The site server reads the data stored in the
inboxes and processes it. As part of the data processing, some of
the data is committed to the SQL Server site database.
- The data operations conducted by the SQL
Server are a combination of deletes, updates, and inserts.
During Configuration Manager performance testing the disk volumes with the highest levels of processing activity were the SQL database volume and the Configuration Manager installation (inboxes) volume. More moderate levels of disk activity should be expected on the SQL Server log volume, SQL Server tempdb volume, and Operating System volume.
 Important |
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| Improving the performance of the SQL Server database volume should be the first step in planning or improving the overall performance of Configuration Manager sites. |
Performance Degradation Caused by Disk Fragmentation
Disk fragmentation will affect the performance of Configuration Manager site systems. Regular disk maintenance should be performed to maintain high Configuration Manager site system performance.
SQL Server index fragmentation of the site database also affects the performance of Configuration Manager sites. The built-in Rebuild Indexes Configuration Manager predefined site maintenance task can be used to regularly rebuild site database table indexes.
CPU Usage in Configuration Manager Sites
Configuration Manager has been designed to effectively maximize overall CPU processing. It is not unusual to see 85% or greater CPU usage on Configuration Manager site server computers.
When a local SQL Server instance is co-located with site server installation, CPU processing is load balanced between the following processes:
- The SMS Executive service (SMSEXEC)
- The SQL Server service (MSSQL)
SQL 2005 has a more aggressive query optimizer that consumes more CPU processing than previous versions of SQL server. When co-locating the SQL Server site database with the site server installation, it consumes more resources than previous versions of SMS utilizing SQL Server 2000. In sites performing large amounts of client data processing, SQL Server will normally consume about two-thirds of the processing usage, with SMSEXEC using the remaining available CPU resources.