The following provides key points and "rules of thumb" for tuning and sizing NT Server Beware: Knowing what each tuning technique does is more important than just knowing which switch to flip! Being informed not just what the tips are but on how and why they influence the behaviour of NT Server will help you make more intelligent decisions and spark some alternate tuning ideas. Keep in mind that although these tips can improve your tuning and sizing efforts, they may potentially have adverse effects if implemented incorrectly.

The rules of thumb selected were chosen because they are relatively safe to implement and can immediately improve the performance of your NT Server.
Be sure to make two good backups of the registry and understand how to restore the registry before tuning it. This concept holds true for any tuning, actually; always understand and have a plan to reverse your efforts if needed. Then stress test or benchmark your new configuration to affirm that you have actually improved your server's performance and that it is stable. Remember that the final true test of performance of an interactive application is always the end user's performance perception.

• Performance Statistics Gathering: Start the Logs
• Key Points to Remember When Using Performance Monitor
• Three Action Items to Complete So That All Relative Performance
• Counters Can Be Collected
• Determining Which Applications (Processes) Are Running Under NT Server
• NT Server Bottleneck Detection Strategy
• Tuning Memory Resources
• Tuning Disk Resources
• Appropriate Use of RAID
• Tuning RAID Controller Cache
• Tuning NT Server's Network Subsystem
• Tuning CPU Resources
• Sizing and Tuning Specific Server Implementations
• Microsoft Exchange
• Sizing Rules of Thumb
• Sizing Disk Subsystem Performance
• Sizing the CPU(s)
• Sizing Memory Requirements
• Summary