Web Sites focusing on problems tied to CPU Utilization

[Albert J. Balash]

I need to locate web sites that focus on
"Configuration Considerations" and "Best
Practices" for administrators who need to solve problems that manifest themselves on their systems through HIGH CPU UTILIZATION.

I would like to get examples of how to approach a methodology for solving some of the typical problems on systems that manifest themselves through "high CPU utilization".

I am not looking for help in solving such problems; instead, I am looking for web sites that provide information in this specific area.

I want to get help on the WEB!

Al Balash

al_balash@hp.com

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

Look for Doc Id: UPERFKBAN00000726 in itrc.hp.com technical knowledge database if the following link does not work.

http://www1.itrc.hp.com/service/cki/docDisplay.do?docLocale=en_US&docId=200000066375011

This would be my first place to start.

-Sri

[Albert J. Balash]

Below are my original comments:

I need to locate web sites that focus on
"Configuration Considerations" and "Best
Practices" for administrators who need to solve problems that manifest themselves on their systems through HIGH CPU UTILIZATION.

I should have added to these comments that
the WEB site must be one that is not the ITRC.

Many of the customers with whom I work have never heard of the ITRC. Of course, between us, the ITRC is the first URL that I offer them. I push the ITRC as hard as I can!!!

However, I also need some URLs outside of the ITRC.

Al Balash

[Albert J. Balash]

Sridhar,

You were right! The ITRC was an excellent place to start. It made me re-think my original course of action. However, I could still use an external website.

ajb

[Bill Hassell]

Actually, I can save you a lot of time. High CPU utilization is caused by application programs. Stop running those programs and the CPU won't be busy anymore.

Seriously, there is virtually nothing you can do in the kernel to fix a bad program. In a separate window, type the following shell commands:

while :
do
:
done

This little code snippet will consume 100% CPU time. If you have multiple processors in the same computer, run it several times. You can even run 50 copies and watch the time slicing take place as each do-nothing program context switches to another.

That said, here are some additional considerations:

- 100% CPU usage is a good thing since all your processing power is being used instead of being wasted.

- database programs trade off disk I/O for memory+CPU activity, so less disk generally means more CPU (but huge increases in overall performance)

- bad programs may be fixed by revising their configuration or instructions. It's not difficult at all to create horrible SQL statements or to have a badly designed database without adequate indexes.

- If the programs are well-written, then you have to decide: do I need better performance? If so, there are two choices:

. more CPU's so that more copies of the busy program can run at the same time, or

. faster CPUs (ie, upgrade or use a faster machine)

And of course, if the program is not threaded, a single copy cannot maske use of more than 1 CPU.

[Randy Stimpson · Accepted solution]

Lets discuss this further