Add Windows PerfMon / PDH source for arbitrary performance counters

[iMithrellas]

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Use Cases

Vector can collect generic Windows host/process metrics through host_metrics, but it does not currently have a source for scraping arbitrary Windows Performance Monitor / PDH counters.

This leaves a gap for Windows application metrics exposed through PerfMon, for example IIS and SQL Server counters:

• IIS: \Web Service(_Total)\Current Connections
• IIS: \Web Service(*)\Bytes Sent/sec
• IIS: \Web Service(*)\Bytes Received/sec
• IIS: \Web Service(*)\Get Requests/sec
• SQL Server default instance: \SQLServer:SQL Statistics\Batch Requests/sec
• SQL Server default instance: \SQLServer:Buffer Manager\Page life expectancy
• SQL Server named instance: \MSSQL$INSTANCE:SQL Statistics\Batch Requests/sec
• SQL Server named instance: \MSSQL$INSTANCE:Buffer Manager\Page life expectancy

Today this usually requires running another agent such as Telegraf or windows_exporter alongside Vector, then forwarding/scraping those metrics.

Attempted Solutions

No response

Proposal

Add a Windows-only source for arbitrary PerfMon / PDH counters, for example:

[sources.windows_perf_counters]
type = "windows_perf_counters"
scrape_interval_secs = 15

[[sources.windows_perf_counters.objects]]
measurement = "iis_web_service"
object_name = "Web Service"
instances = ["_Total"]
counters = ["Current Connections"]

[[sources.windows_perf_counters.objects]]
measurement = "mssql_sql_statistics"
object_name = "SQLServer:SQL Statistics"
instances = ["------"]
counters = ["Batch Requests/sec"]

Wildcard instances could also be supported:

[[sources.windows_perf_counters.objects]]
measurement = "iis_web_service"
object_name = "Web Service"
instances = ["*"]
counters = ["Current Connections", "Bytes Sent/sec"]

Optionally, the source could also support raw PDH paths for advanced or unusual counters:

[[sources.windows_perf_counters.counters]]
name = "mssql_page_life_expectancy"
path = "\\SQLServer:Buffer Manager\\Page life expectancy"

---

I would initially keep this narrow:

• Windows only
• Local machine only
• PDH API
• Formatted gauge metrics
• Object / instance / counter configuration
• Wildcard instance expansion

This would be a Telegraf-inspired subset of win_perf_counters, not full Telegraf parity.

I am willing to attempt building a standalone Rust prototype first for faster iteration, then work with maintainers on porting it into Vector once the source shape is agreed on.

References

No response

Version

vector 0.53.0