System performance

[Osama88]

Hi all,

Where can I find info to decide on the state of my server. Example : Are there too many processes waiting for I/O, how many page-out are normal and stuff along this lines.

Rgds

[Kenny Chau]

You can install GlancePlus to display information of your system. But this is not a freeware. GlancePlus will display CPU, Disk, Memory and Swap utilization.

Hope this helps.
Kenny.

[Michael Tully]

You can install 'glance' for trial period of 30 days. This would be a useful tool to some quick analysis. It is available on your application CD set.

There are a number of other tools as well.
top
sar
vmstat
iostat

But these are not as good or as accurate as the 'glance' tool.

Michael

[Shannon Petry]

I'll disagree with Michael about sar, top, iostat, and vmstat being worse than glance!

Glance and the programs mentioned all poll the kernel directly so work the same.

Glance adds a GUI layer and nice reporting tools.

Is it worth the $$? Yes, for the average sysadmin it is where performance is critical because it does not require as much knowlege!

Is it required? NO, the commands listed above will give you the same information, sometimes better because of the control you have with "what" you look at.

Read man pages for vmstat, sar, iostat, and top. (Top is not necessary, but nice). Each of these are pretty complex, and very flexible, but tools available on All major Unices.

Regards,
Shannon

[John Carr_2]

Hi

glanceplus is easy to use and far more easy to understand the results than the general command line programs such as iostat vmstat..

BUT glance as in its descriptive name is only glancing at the system at any moment in time. If your system is having problems at intervals then measureware will produce statistics on teh system resources. MeasureWare is available on 30 days trial also.

good luck
John.

[Clemens van Everdingen]

Hi,

I think for starters glance is Ok, but if you need measurements over longer periods you will need measureware in the first place and also all the other mentioned tools will be off use in the determination of the problem.

C.

[Krishna Prasad]

System OS stuff

glance + which includes perfview
top
sar

Database Tools if you have one

Oracle provides management tools that will drill down to the sql statement and show you if it uses indexes,full table scans.

[pap]

Hi you can run following dignostics commmands for examining system performance.

1. iostat
2. vmstat
3. sar
4. nfsstat for NFS file systems performance monitoring.

5.netstat for network performance.

6. HP GlancePlus/UX give command glance or gpm it is a very comprehencive tool and will get you wantd about your HP system.

7. HP Perfview - Greater depth performance monitoring and gives reliable results.


6,7 tools are licensed one and you need to puchase it from HP. However you can find trial version of them and use it free for some period.

-pap

[Osama88]

Hi all,

Thanks for the info.
Using the tools mentioned, how do I know if my server is short of RAM or for that matter my disk is too slow or I need more CPU.

Rgds

[Michael Tully]

Using the glance tool, it will give you a combination of memory being used as well as the buffer cache. You will probably find that your buffer cache is far too high and needs to be lowered. It should not be any more than 300Mb. There has been many postings in regards to this. This will free up memory.
In my previous answer to this posting I stated that some tools were not as accurate as others. I stick by that comment. Some of the older Unix tools do not measure things such as Disk IO particularly well, since most of the disk now is utilised in SANS and the like.

[Steven Gillard_2]

Have a good read of the following document:

http://us-support2.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=5160744b12a060cb28/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000050018417

Its a step by step guide to the basics of diagnosing performing problems.

Regards,
Steve