---
title: MSSQL performance metricset
description: performance Metricset fetches information from what’s commonly known as Performance Counters in MSSQL. We fetch the following data: page_splits_per_sec:...
url: https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/metricbeat/metricbeat-metricset-mssql-performance
products:
  - Beats
  - Metricbeat
applies_to:
  - Elastic Stack: Generally available
---

# MSSQL performance metricset
`performance` Metricset fetches information from what’s commonly known as [Performance Counters](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/system-dynamic-management-views/sys-dm-os-performance-counters-transact-sql?view=sql-server-2017) in MSSQL.
We fetch the following data:
- **page_splits_per_sec**: Number of page splits per second that occur as the result of overflowing index pages.
- **lock_waits_per_sec**: Number of lock requests per second that required the caller to wait.
- **user_connections**: Total number of user connections
- **transactions**: Total number of transactions
- **active_temp_tables**: Number of temporary tables/table variables in use.
- **connections_reset_per_sec**: Total number of logins started from the connection pool.
- **logins_per_sec**: Total number of logins started per second. This does not include pooled connections.
- **logouts_per_sec**: Total number of logout operations started per second.
- **recompilations_per_sec**: Number of statement recompiles per second. Counts the number of times statement recompiles are triggered. Generally, you want the recompiles to be low.
- **compilations_per_sec**: Number of SQL compilations per second. Indicates the number of times the compile code path is entered. Includes compiles caused by statement-level recompilations in SQL Server. After SQL Server user activity is stable, this value reaches a steady state.
- **batch_requests_per_sec**: Number of Transact-SQL command batches received per second. This statistic is affected by all constraints (such as I/O, number of users, cache size, complexity of requests, and so on). High batch requests mean good throughput.
- **cache_hit.pct**: The ratio is the total number of cache hits divided by the total number of cache lookups over the last few thousand page accesses. After a long period of time, the ratio moves very little. Because reading from the cache is much less expensive than reading from disk, you want this ratio to be high
- **page_life_expectancy.sec**: Indicates the number of seconds a page will stay in the buffer pool without references (in seconds).
- **buffer.checkpoint_pages_per_sec**: Indicates the number of pages flushed to disk per second by a checkpoint or other operation that require all dirty pages to be flushed.
- **buffer.database_pages**: Indicates the number of pages in the buffer pool with database content.
- **buffer.target_pages**: Ideal number of pages in the buffer pool.

This is a default metricset. If the host module is unconfigured, this metricset is enabled by default.

## Fields

For a description of each field in the metricset, see the [exported fields](https://www.elastic.co/docs/reference/beats/metricbeat/exported-fields-mssql) section.
Here is an example document generated by this metricset:
```json
{
    "@timestamp": "2017-10-12T08:05:34.853Z",
    "event": {
        "dataset": "mssql.performance",
        "duration": 115000,
        "module": "mssql"
    },
    "metricset": {
        "name": "performance",
        "period": 10000
    },
    "mssql": {
        "performance": {
            "active_temp_tables": 0,
            "batch_requests_per_sec": 7453,
            "buffer": {
                "cache_hit": {
                    "pct": 0.55
                },
                "checkpoint_pages_per_sec": 124,
                "database_pages": 2191,
                "page_life_expectancy": {
                    "sec": 2721
                },
                "target_pages": 1589248
            },
            "compilations_per_sec": 2503,
            "connections_reset_per_sec": 61,
            "lock_waits_per_sec": 4,
            "logins_per_sec": 2448,
            "logouts_per_sec": 2446,
            "page_splits_per_sec": 15,
            "recompilations_per_sec": 0,
            "transactions": 0,
            "user_connections": 2
        }
    },
    "service": {
        "address": "172.23.0.2:1433",
        "type": "mssql"
    }
}
```