Named instance perfmon counters

Collecting or adding perfmon counters for named instance for SQL Server.

Collecting and analyzing Performance Monitor (perfmon) counters for SQL Server and operating system is an integral part for the performance tuning. You can find SQL Server counters under the object ‘SQL Server’.

But on several occasions my colleagues have reported that they do not find the objects ‘SQL Server’.  This might be the case if the SQL Server has a named instance. In such scenarios the counters do not appear under SQL Server. To find the actual name run the following query.

use MASTER

select * from sysperfinfo where object_name like '%Buffer Manager%'

And you will find the actual counter names in the fist column. In the following screenshot the counter name is MSSQL$MIROR and you should find that in performance monitor.

All named instance counters objects start with ‘MSSQL$’ and followed by the name of the instance.

So look for counters starting with ‘MSSQL’ and not under ‘SQL Server’