Counter

What is a Counter (in computer networking)?

An aspect of an object in Performance Monitor for which usage statistics can be collected. Performance Monitor, a Microsoft Windows NT administrative tool for monitoring system resources, can be used to collect status information about various objects. (In Windows 2000, System Monitor in the Performance console is used to perform the monitoring task.) For example, if the object Processor is being studied, the Performance Monitor collects information on all counters that belong to this object. This includes counters such as:

• % User Time:
  The percentage of the time the processor is in user mode executing a nonidle thread

   

• % Privileged Time:
  The percentage of the time the processor is in kernel mode executing a nonidle thread

   

• Interrupts/sec:
  The number of device interrupts a processor receives per second

   

If the machine is a multiprocessor system, each instance of each counter can be monitored. Performance Monitor counters are usually one of two types:

• Instantaneous counters, which display the most recent value of a measurement—for example, Processor: % Processor Time
• Average counters, which display the average of the last two measured values - for example, LogicalDisk: Avg. Disk Bytes/Read