This document discusses various performance analysis tools for Visual Studio including trace analysis, event tracing for Windows (ETW), performance counters, and profiling. It provides information on how these tools can be used to measure code and system performance, gather debugging information like call stacks and symbols, and identify bottlenecks and resource contention. Examples are given of the types of data and events that can be captured from the operating system, .NET framework, and applications to help optimize performance.

1. Demystifying Visual Studio
2012 Performance Tools
Martin Kulov | kulov.net
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2. You cannot manage,
What you do not measure
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3. You cannot Improve,
What you do not measure
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4. Trace Analysis
Our code
CLR COM WinRT
Win32 API
Operating System
HDD RAM CPU LAN CPU
Counters
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5. CPU Counters
• Hardware events – portable and platform
– Instructions Retired
– Non Halted Cycles
– ITLB Misses
– Branches Retired
– Mis-predicted Branches
– L2 Cache Read Misses
– L2 Cache Read References
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6. Trace Analysis
Our code
CLR COM WinRT
Windows
Win32 API Perf
Counters
Operating System
HDD RAM CPU LAN CPU
Counters
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7. Windows Performance Counters
• They are …counters
• Min interval – 1sec
• Apps and kernel send Increment signals
• Accessed by Windows API
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8. Perf Counters Demo
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9. Trace Analysis
Our code
CLR COM WinRT
Windows
Event
Win32 API Perf
Tracing
Counters
for Operating System
Windows
HDD RAM CPU LAN CPU
Counters
www.devreach.com

10. Event Tracing for Windows
• General purpose, high speed tracing
• Buffering and logging in kernel
• Faster than printf
– 20,000 events per second while only using 5% CPU load on a P3 500MHz!
• Provider, Consumer, Controller model
• Over 700 providers in Win7, ~900 in Win8!
• Aggregates all sources
• Stack walking (on kernel events)
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11. ETW Kernel Providers
• Hardware Configuration Events
• Disk-level I/O
• File-level I/O
• Image Layouts
• Page Faults
• Network I/O
• Registry I/O
• Process and Thread info
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12. ETW Application Providers
• Windows Firewall
• WLAN, LAN
• USB, Bluetooth
• IIS, ASP.NET, CLR, HTTP.SYS
• Security
• … many more
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13. ETW Demo
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14. Side note: Symbols
• _NT_SYMBOL_PATH=SRV*c:mss*http://
msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols
• Call stack information
• Private managed code fields
• Link to source code repository
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15. Concurrency Visualizer
• Utilization
• Threads
• Cores
• Stack Walking
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16. Trace Analysis
Profiler
Our code
CLR COM WinRT
Windows
Event
Win32 API Perf
Tracing
Counters
for Operating System
Windows
HDD RAM CPU LAN CPU
Counters
www.devreach.com

17. Profiler
• Instrumentation
• Sampling
• Concurrency
• Stack Walking
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18. Profiler setup
• There can be only one
• Uses environment variables
– COR_ENABLE_PROFILING
– COR_PROFILER
– COR_XXX…
• Profiler API
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19. Instrumentation
• Profiler based
• Requires full code recompilation
• Best during development phase
• Complete execution path
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20. Sampling
• Profiler based
• Data collection on sample intervals
• Suitable for long runs
• Call Stack
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21. Concurrency
• Show resource contention
• Based on Detours
• Microsoft Research project now sold for
$10k
• http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/detours/
• Stack Walking
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22. Profiling extras
• GC, Allocation
• Tier Interaction
• JavaScript
• Production use
• Licensing
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23. Profiler Demo
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24. Thank you!
@kulov
www.kulov.net
www.linkedin.com/in/kulov
Martin Kulov | kulov.net
www.devreach.com