Improving performance with the Windows Performance Toolkit

1. HW-59T Improving performance with the Windows Performance Toolkit Michael Milirud Program Manager Microsoft Corporation

2. Agenda Motivations for performance analysis Key Concepts Windows Performance Recorder Windows Performance Analyzer WPA integration with the ADK You’ll leave knowing how to: • Approach performance • Collect and analyze traces • Perform basic live system analysis

3. Motivations for Performance Analysis

4. Performance is a Layered Challenge Extensions, Driver, Services, Applications Efficient platforms require efficient and reliable extensions Windows engineering processes focus on performance throughout the development cycle Operating System Core Hardware, Processor, Chipset, and Devices Fundamental quality starts with a great hardware platform

5. Performance Improvement is a Cycle • Performance analysis is an iterative process • The people fixing an issueprobably aren’t the people experiencing an issue • The ability to easilywork together is key

6. Key Concepts

7. Elements of Performance • Responsiveness • Unresponsive systems quickly generate customer dissatisfaction • Machine constraints = reality • Resource utilization • Physical: CPU, GPU, disk, memory, network, battery • Logical: critical sections, critical resources • Resources can be critical if they are scarce, shared, and/or have queuing semantics

8. Origins of Windows Performance Toolkit • The Windows PerformanceToolkit was introduced at PDC 2009 • The tools have proven tobe very valuable • The design focus to-date has been on power users http://www.microsoftpdc.com/2009/CL16

9. Benefits of WPT • Enables follow up on issues raised via ADK performance assessments • Enables holistic performance analysis • All processes/threads • All key system resources • User + kernel mode • Provides a way to analyze what customer actually experiences • Catch the problem as it happens • Capture-Anywhere-Decode-Anywhere • Very low overhead versus alternatives • Region of interest profiling • You get both what and when

10. Windows Performance Recorder and Analyzer • Tools for: • Trace Capture (WPR) • Trace Analysis (WPA) • Based on ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) • Used within Microsoft to build Windows • Core code reused in-box • Documentation on MSDN • Part of ADK and SDK in Windows 8

11. Stages of Performance Analysis Perception Measurement Analysis System slows down App launch takes longer Browser refresh is slower Disk light is always on Poor battery life CPU profiling Context switches Changes in priority Disk I/Os Memory allocations Lock acquisition C and P state lifetimes CPU utilization CPU starvation Priority inversions Ineffective access patterns Disk saturation Memory leaks Redundant memory Lock contention Energy Efficiency Iterate

12. Windows Performance Recorder

13. demo Windows Performance Recorder

14. Demo Concept Review • Starting recording • Monitoring recording status • Saving recording • Including issue description

15. Windows Performance Analyzer (A.K.A. XPerf)

16. XPerf in Windows 7

17. Benefits of WPA in Windows 8 • Broaden the target audience to mainstream developers • Leverage familiar UI experiences • Enable quick ramp up • Reduce ‘noise’ to focus on the ‘right’ issues

18. WPA in Windows 8 Detailed Graph Graph Explorer Aggregating Columns Legend Graph Grouping Columns Graphing Columns Table Gold Bar Blue Bar

19. demo Windows Performance Analyzer

20. Demo Concept Review • Single window lifetime management • Visual Studio view management • Graph Explorer • Analysis Views • Single shared timeline • Detailed graphs • Diagnostic View • Profiles/sessions • Presets • Layouts • Graph types • Gold/Blue bars • Synchronization of selection

21. WPA Integration with ADK

22. First Class Integration with the ADK • ADK = Assessment & Deployment Kit • Assessments produce traces • Productive experience of troubleshooting identified issues

23. demo WPA Integration with ADK Following up on ADK assessment issues Here’s where the issue is!

24. Demo Concept Review • ADK integration • Issues View • Assessment Activity graph • Assisted Diagnostics • Details View

25. Things to look out for • Don’t assume you know what’s wrong • Don’t enable too much instrumentation • Don’t trace for longer than you need • Remember to enable stack walking on x64

26. Summary • Performance is critical for your customer • You have to • Plan for it before you code/build • Measure it as you code/build • WPA is integrated with ADK • WPR is a new tool in Windows 8

27. Related sessions • HW-147T building high quality Windows PCs using the assessment and deployment kit • HW-915P Introduction to assessments • HW-141T Reducing the memory footprint of drivers and apps • HW-922P Capturing and analyzing performance traces • HW-925P Customizing WPA trace views • HW-926P Introduction to the new WPA UI

28. Further reading and documentation • Dev Center: • Windows Performance Analysis • MSDN documentation: • WPA • WPR • Event Tracing for Windows • Books: • Windows Internals by Mark Russinovich, David Solomon, and Alex Ionescu • Contact info: • WPT Forum

29. thank you Feedback and questions http://forums.dev.windows.com Session feedbackhttp://bldw.in/SessionFeedback

30. © 2011 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Microsoft, Windows, Windows Vista and other product names are or may be registered trademarks and/or trademarks in the U.S. and/or other countries. The information herein is for informational purposes only and represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation as of the date of this presentation. Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information provided after the date of this presentation. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, AS TO THE INFORMATION IN THIS PRESENTATION.