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How do I monitor bandwidth used by SQL Server on port 1433?

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-dba··
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howsqlusedportmonitorserverbandwidth1433

Problem

I have a single server running a .NET web application and a SQL Server database (2008 Standard). I'm planning to move the database onto a separate server but in order to provision the network hardware I'd like to benchmark the data throughput between the web application and the database. Can port 1433 be monitored internally? If so is there any tool native to Windows 2008 R2 that can do this, or would I need some 3rd party application like WireShark? My connection string is referencing the database using server=localhost, is it still possible to tap into 1433 to see the bandwidth used on this port?

Essentially I'm trying to determine if I need a Gbit or 100 Mbit connection between the web server and database server. Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

UPDATE 8th July

I hashed out the above as I realise it's largely irrelevant. For some reason I thought there would be a big cost difference between a 100 Mbit and 1 Gbit switch. Only the cheapo home user switches are 100 Mbit. As others have pointed out, Wireshark will not pickup activity between IIS and the SQL server on the same box. I'm putting in a 1Gbit managed switch for now and I'll use either Wireshark or the built in monitoring on the switch to see what's going on later. I don't think it will be anywhere close to the physical transfer limits imposed by the hardware.

Solution

Not aware of any built-in method to record bytes over a particular port so if you really need that level of detail, Wireshark is a good bet.

If the server is dedicated to SQL Server I'd be reasonably confident that the majority of traffic over the network was related, so the perfmon counter Network Interface\Bytes Total/Sec should give you a broad guideline.

To be honest it's a mute point in my book. Unless there is a large and nonsensical additional cost for the gig port where your servers are hosted, take it.

Context

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#45846, answer score: 8

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