Tableau Server on Windows Help

To monitor resource usage and server processes, you can use Windows Performance Monitor (PerfMon), which is included with Windows Server. Use PerfMon to gather detailed performance information, including how often the CPU is being used, how much memory is being used, information about each Tableau Server process, and more.

For more information about what each Tableau Server process does, see Tableau Server Processes.

Disclaimer: This information refers to a third-party product. This example is not an endorsement of this product over any other competing products.

Before you can use PerfMon, you set up a data collector set, which is how PerfMon stores the data that it collects. To collect information about Tableau Server processes with PerfMon, Tableau Server must be running when you create the data collector set. The data that you collect in PerfMon are often referred to as performance counters.

How to collect data with Windows Performance Monitor

Step 1: Create a new data collector set

1. Click the Windows Start menu and search for "performance".

2. Right-click Performance Monitor and then click Run as administrator.

3. In the left pane, click Data Collector Sets.

4. In the right pane, right-click User Defined, click New, and then click Data Collector Set.

5. In the Create new Data Collector Set wizard, enter a name for the data collector set. For example, you might enter Tableau Server Performance.

6. Select Create manually (Advanced) and then click Next.

7. Under Create data logs, select Performance counter, and click Next.

Step 2: Select performance counters

1. Set the sample interval to 30 seconds.

2. Click Add.

3. Select the computer that you want to record performance data for.

   If you run Tableau Server on a single computer, select <Local Computer>. If you run Tableau Server on multiple computers, you must repeat some of these steps to gather data about each computer.

4. Select performance counters from the list.

   The following table lists some performance counters that we recommend for tracking Tableau Server performance.

   Category	Performance Counters	Notes
   Logical Disk	Current Disk Queue Length Disk Read Bytes/sec Disk Write Bytes/sec	The number of outstanding write requests and the amount of bytes read and written to the server’s hard disk. Select these counters for the disk on which you installed Tableau Server (referred to as the instance in PerfMon).
   Memory	% Committed Bytes in Use Available MBytes	The percentage of virtual memory in use, and the amount of memory available in megabytes.
   Processor Information	%Processor Time % Processor Utility	The percentage of time that the processor spends active, and the percent of processing capacity being used by the processor.
   Process	% Processor Time Private Bytes	The percentage of processing capacity being used by a particular process, and the amount of memory reserved for the process. Select these counters for the following processes (referred to as instances in PerfMon): run-backgrounder (Backgrounder) run-dataserver (Data server) redis-server (Cache server) hyperd (Data engine) run-vizqlserver (VizQL Server)

   To select each performance counter:

   1. Double-click to select a category in the drop-down list.

   2. Select the performance counter or counters that you want to use.

   3. Under Instances of selected object, if appropriate, select the process (or instance) that you want to collect information about.

      

   4. Click Add.

   5. If you run Tableau Server on multiple computers, return to step 3, select another computer and then repeat the above steps.

      Important: Depending on how you configured server processes to run across computers, you might have to monitor only a subset of the processes listed for each computer. For example, it's a best practice to isolate the backgrounder processes on a separate computer. As a result, for that computer, you would only monitor the backgrounder processes.

   6. Click OK and then click Next.

Step 3: Save the data collector set

1. Browse to the directory where you want to store the data, and then click Next.

   Important: You must store the data in a place that's accessible by Tableau. For example, you might want to store the data on a network drive. If you don't have a network drive mapped, right-click This PC and select Add a Network Location.

2. Click Finish.

3. In the left pane of the main Performance Monitor window, select the data collector set that you created.

4. In the right pane, right-click the performance counter DataCollector01 and then click Properties.

5. Select Comma separated as the log format and then click OK.

Step 4: Run the data collector set

In the left pane, right-click the name of the data collector set that you created and click Start. The Windows Performance Monitor tool starts monitoring your server and storing information in the location that you specified.

Step 5: Allow Remote Access for Multiple Computers

For PerfMon to collect data about other computers, you need to make sure that the other computers can be reached—that is, that they are on the same network and do not have firewall rules that prevent access. The firewall rules that you need to set differ across versions of Windows, so you might need to contact your network administrator for information. In addition, you must make sure that the Run As user account has permission to collect data on the remote computers. By default, PerfMon runs the data collector set as the SYSTEM user. To change the Run As user, complete the following steps:

1. In the left pane of PerfMon, open the Data Collector Sets node and then the User Defined node.

2. Right-click the name of the data collector set and then click Properties.

3. In the Run As section of the General tab, click the Change button and specify a different account.