NTDS is the main source of information on Active Directory traffic to and from Domain Controllers. It contains a ton of interesting looking counters.
Unfortunately, there is not much written that documents AD performance issues and how to use these counters. This TechNet overview article is a good place to start. There are two main objects [...]

Unless you are prepared to deal with much larger Performance Sentry data files than usual, you should use appropriate filter settings when you collect Module data. Collecting the Module information is costly, and the average Windows Server executable routinely loads 50-100 assorted DLLs. Please be careful with this new function and implement a Module filter for all container processes [...]

A performance data Object called Module is created internally, when you include the Module Object in your Data Collection Set (DCS) data definition. Each instance of the Module Object shows a load module name, usually a DLL (dynamically linked library module) that is loaded within the specific process. The Module Object also has a parent [...]

The Ave Disk Queue Length Counter is derived from the product of Avg.Disk sec/Transfer) times Disk Transfers/sec, the average response of the device times the I/O rate. This corresponds to a well-known theorem of Queuing Theory called Little’s Law, which states:
N = l * Sr
where N is the number of outstanding requests in the system, [...]

Everything you need to monitor Windows Servers running MS Exchange, SQL Server, IIS, or any other application is included in Performance Sentry. You only need to assign a Data Collection set (DCS) appropriate to the application that runs on these servers to start gathering data on these applications.

Once Performance Sentry is installed and you are able to collect and process Windows performance data on a consistent basis, it is a good idea to familiarize yourself with some of the more important data elements that you will be collecting with Performance Sentry. There are several ways to approach this.
To help you get started, [...]