[hobbit] Load Averages

[Hubbard, Greg L]

Gavin,
 
Load average is (more or less) the average length of the run queue for a
UNIX-style system (someone once posted a link to a more precise
definition on this forum).  For your system, a load average value of 15
means that an average of 15 processes are waiting to use the CPU -- a
problem for most systems.
 
If you look at the trends button, you will probably find a CPU
utilization graph that shows a split between user, system, and idle CPU
usage.
 
CPU utilization shows how busy the CPU(s) is/are, but load average shows
the impact of a busy CPU on the system's workload.
 
I once had a system that spiked to 200+ in the load average display.
This problem was traced to a problem in some multi-threaded code where
the threads were going into infinite loops one by one until all of them
were locked up.  Amazingly enough, the system still responded to
interactive usage, but v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.
 
GLH


________________________________

	From: Gavin Leonard [mailto:gleonard at progrexion.com] 
	Sent: Wednesday, October 08, 2008 4:16 PM
	To: hobbit at hswn.dk
	Subject: [hobbit] Load Averages
	
	

	I am getting pages from my hobbit server when some of my linux
systems are hitting 15 on their load avg. does that equate to something
worse than it sounds? Cause 15% load average on a linux system does not
seem that bad? Or is it not a percentage?

	 

 

 

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