SSIS Performance Counters

SQL Server Integration Services provide a set of performance counters. Among them the following few are helpful when you tune or debug your package:

• Buffers in use
• Flat buffers in use
• Private buffers in use
• Buffers spooled
• Rows read
• Rows written

“Buffers in use”, “Flat buffers in use” and “Private buffers in use” are useful to discover leaks. During package execution time, you will see these counters fluctuating. But once the package finishes execution, their values should return to the same value as what they were before the execution. Otherwise, buffers are leaked.
"Buffers spooled” has an initial value of 0. When it goes above 0, it indicates that the engine has started memory swapping.
“Rows read” and “Rows written” show how many rows the entire Data Flow has processed. They give you an overall idea about the execution progress. 

Now the big question is how do we monitor those performance counters?

You use the Performance Microsoft Management Console (MMC) snap-in to create a log that captures performance counters.
To add a new log that includes all performance counters for the data flow engine, follow the steps here:
1) In Control Panel, click Administrative Tools, and then click Performance.
2) In the Performance dialog box, expand Performance Logs and Alerts, right-click Counter Logs, and then click New Log Settings. Type the name of the log. For example, type SSISLog.



3) In the SSISLog dialog box, click Add Counters.


4) In the Add Counters dialog box, select SQL Server:SSIS Pipeline in the Performance object box.


5) Select the All Counters check box, select Add, and then close the dialog boxes.

Finally, you should see the counters and their value fluctuations on the main System Monitor window during the execution of your SSIS package (my SSIS package is not running so you don’t see the counters in the screen shot).


One more note:
You must start the Performance Logs and Alerts service using a local account or a domain account that is a member of the Administrators group.