Use Performance Objects

SQL Server Agent includes performance objects and counters to monitor how the service is
performing. These performance objects allow you to use Performance Monitor, a Windows tool,
to identify what the SQL Server Agent service is doing in the background. For example, you can
identify how many active jobs the SQL Server Agent service is currently running to identify
those jobs that are blocked.

The SQL Server Agent service performance objects and counters exist for each instance of SQL
Server that is installed on a computer. Performance objects are named according to the instance
of SQL Server that each object represents.

The following table shows how the SQL Server Agent service performance objects are named:

Instance type Object name

Default SQLAgent:object:counter
SQLAgent$
Named
*instance_name* :object:counter

SQL Server includes the following performance objects for SQL Server Agent.

Object name Description

Performance information about jobs that have been started, success rates,
SQLAgent:Jobs
and current status
SQLAgent:JobSteps Status information about job steps
SQLAgent:Alerts Information about number of alerts and notifications
SQLAgent:Statistics General performance information