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  The File I/O Performance Monitor

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hIOmon Presentation Client Screen Shots -
 I/O Trace Read Display Example

Product Info

The hIOmon Presentation Client "I/O Operation Trace Display" (available through the hIOmon "'I/O Trace Data Licensing Option") allows you to view detailed I/O operation trace information within a customized tabular format, in either real-time or replay modes.  This display essentially provides a sequential trace of the actual I/O operations which the hIOmon I/O Monitor observed and monitored in accordance with the selected Filter Selection.

With precise start and completion time stamps, I/O operation type and completion status, associated file and process names and more, the I/O Operation Trace Display can provide you with a play-by-play account of the specific I/O operations that underlie the file activity within your computer system.  This hIOmon feature is a powerful diagnostic tool that you can use to observe, record and understand the inner workings of your file accesses.

Features

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Screen Shots

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The hIOmon Presentation Client "I/O Operation Trace Display" (shown below) is comparable to the display provided by the FileMon program available from Sysinternals.  hIOmon, however, also provides additional unique features such as a "replay display mode", the user/account name along with the "process image filename" associated with the process, optional precision sub-millisecond timestamps, and more.  In addition, only hIOmon provides you with "summarized" (i.e., aggregated) file I/O operation metrics that enable you to take a "top-down" approach by starting with the 'summarized' metrics and drilling down (only if necessary) to the "I/O trace" displays.  Such an approach helps you avoid wasting your valuable time, since wading through reams of collected/displayed "I/O trace data" can typically be kept to a bare minimum (if not avoided altogether).

Note that the "summarized" I/O operation metrics can also be displayed by the hIOmon WMI support, the hIOmon CLI support along with the hIOmon Performance/System Monitor support.  The particular summarized metrics of interest (as well as your specific "I/O Trace" metrics of interest) can also be easily exported to CSV files.   

The following screen shot (thumbnail below, click on to enlarge) is an example of the File I/O Trace Display.  This example features an excerpt of the file I/O operations generated by viewing a white paper with the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™.  The excerpt highlights a portion of the read file I/O operations involved with this file access.

An excerpt of the "How fast are your files?™  A Case for Monitoring File I/O Performance" white paper was used as the file for this example.  The size of this file was 140,764 bytes.  The "engCenter" Filter Selection was used to specify the particular files to be monitored and the type of file I/O operation performance information to collect.  Note, however, that the engCenter Filter Selection was slightly modified (by simply checking the 'Trace Records' checkbox) so that the hIOmon I/O Monitor would collect the I/O operation trace information required for the File I/O Trace Display.

In addition, the file Alert thresholds as shown in the File Alerts Display screen shot were also enabled for the "T:\Documents\*" filter for this example.

As noted above, the file I/O operations were generated by viewing the file with the Adobe® Acrobat® Reader™.

"Control" type I/O operations often make use of additional parameters that further indicate the particular type of control action to be performed; for instance, the type of file access requested (e.g., "read" or "write" access) when performing a "create open" IRP).  A "Details" column can optionally be included within the display so as to show additional information about these parameters.  

The screen shot to the immediate left displays the same I/O trace data as that of the screen shot above, except that the "Details" column has been added to the display (far right) and the "Duration" and "User Name" columns have been removed from the display for screen shot demonstration purposes.

Additional screen shot examples of "Details" information for control I/O operations include a "File System Control" IRP example along with a "Set Information" IRP example.

This screen shot example highlights some of the key features provided by hIOmon:

• Precision time stamps.  Only hIOmon can provide sub-millisecond timing precision (which is required when dealing with fast file I/O operations such as those shown in the screen shot example). The screen shot example shows time stamps in the "hour:minute:second.millisecond.microsecond" display format.  The "Table Options" button on the display allows you to customize the time stamp; you can select a "time only", "time only with milliseconds", "time and date" or "full time and date" time stamp display format.

• Replay mode.  The hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display supports both replay and real-time display modes.  You can use the drop-down box at the top of the display in replay mode to select the particular File I/O Log file that you want displayed.  File I/O Log files are disk files (maintained by the hIOmon Manager) that are used to optionally contain the I/O operation performance information collected by the hIOmon I/O Monitor.  The display of I/O operation performance information in replay mode is essentially identical to the display of I/O operation performance information in the real-time mode of operation.

• Variable retrieval rate.  In replay mode, the hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display allows you to the change the rate at which the I/O operation performance information is retrieved by the hIOmon Presentation Client from the hIOmon Manager.  This enables you to slow down or increase the rate at which the display is updated with I/O operation information.  You can also temporarily pause and then subsequently resume the retrieval of the I/O operation performance information by the hIOmon Presentation Client.

• File alerts included within the display.  The hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display includes the occurrence of file Alerts along with both Fast I/O (FIO) and I/O Request Packets (IRP) I/O operations (FIO and IRP are the two file I/O operation types used by Windows® 7, Windows Vista™, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Server 2008/R2).  For example, the file Alert at sequence ID 28 is shown in the display; this file Alert is a result of the completion of the Read I/O operation with sequence ID 27 (which transferred 65536 bytes of data and thus triggered the "Read Operation Alerts - maximum data transfer size" threshold). 

• Descriptive completion status.  Rather than simply displaying a numerical status code value, the hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display attempts to provide a status code description.  For example, "Buffer overflow" is shown as the completion status for the "Query Volume Information" IRP operation with sequence ID 37.  To reduce visual clutter, the status column is left blank for the zero (success) completion status code.

• Process ID, Session ID, and Process Image Filename.  The associated process ID value is included along with the process name in the I/O Operation Trace display; in addition, the associated "process session ID" as well as the "process image filename" (i.e., the full file path name of the image file associated with the process) can also be optionally displayed.

• Combined IRP operations.  The screen shot above shows an example of an I/O Operation Trace display where the start of an IRP I/O operation and the completion of the same IRP I/O operation are shown within separate rows of the table; you can use the "Table Options" button to specify that the I/O operation data for the same IRP is to be shown within a single table row (akin to how the FIO I/O operations are displayed, where simply the starting time stamp and the duration are shown within a single row table entry). 

• Customized columns.  The hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display allows you to rearrange the order of the display columns (simply by dragging the column heading to the desired position location).  The "Table Options" button even lets you remove (and subsequently add) column headings.

• Preserved table display format changes.  The hIOmon Presentation Client allows you to save your display format settings (such as the time stamp display format) so that they will be automatically enabled the next time you use the I/O Operation Trace display with the same hIOmon Profile.

• Export.  You can optionally "export" the retrieved I/O operation performance information to a CSV file (so that you can perform your own specific analysis upon the I/O operation performance information).

• "Profile" support.  You can assign an arbitrary name to a collection of hIOmon Managers that are running upon separate computer servers.  This name represents a "profile" that you can then use to refer to this collection of hIOmon Managers.  Using a profile name, you can in one step connect the hIOmon Presentation Client to the respective, specific set of hIOmon Managers; you can also specify particular display options that are to automatically go into effect for a particular profile name.

The flexibility, simplicity, and ease-of-use provided by the hIOmon I/O Operation Trace display (not to mention the precise, complete file I/O operation content) all make hIOmon the diagnostic tool required for a detailed analysis of the I/O operations underlying your file activity. 

hyperI/O^sm -  improving the performance of storage I/O in computer servers