From: Jonathan Williams (jonathw@shubertorg.com)
Date: Tue Oct 22 2002 - 11:46:18 EDT
I'm not sure if I explained myself well enough the other day. I've only
received three responses so far, and while they are helpful--I still haven't
found my answer. So I'm going to try and clear up a couple of things.
Our main production system consists of two servers. One is an Alpha ES40
running Tru64 5.1. This one is the database server. It runs a single Informix
database. This server has been pretty much tuned, and is performing well. The
other half of the system is an Alpha ES45 running Tru64 5.1a. This is the
application server. It has one single user logged in that runs about 30
applications. This application server does not run any Informix databases...it
merely connects to the database over on the database server. Now this server
is the one that needs to be tuned. The CPU idle is usually very low (around 3%
idle), and the load averages hover around 6. While neither of these things
might be a problem--I think think the system would perform better if better
tuned. I could be wrong, but I'm thinking that there *are* resources available
on the system (memory for example), but this single "online" user has exceeded
his limits on the system. I would assume that there are kernel level things
limiting how much memory, CPU time, etc a single user is allowed. I want to
tune this system to reflect the fact that there is only one user, and he is
allowed to use as much system resources as he wants. Or I could be wrong, and
there are no such limits.
Hopefully that will generate some more responses with the info I'm seeking. TIA
Jonathan Williams
Unix Systems Administrator
The Shubert Organization, Inc.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jonathan Williams" <jonathw@shubertorg.com>
To: "Tru64 Mailing List" <tru64-unix-managers@ornl.gov>
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2002 3:34 PM
Subject: System Tuning
> We have tweaked our Informix config files enough, and feel that our databases
> are running much much faster now. Now we want to look into tuning our main
> production application server. It is an Alpha ES45 with 4GB RAM running Tru64
> 5.1a. Now that the database is running quickly, it has become very obvious
that
> the bottleneck is now the application server. The big bosses wanted to run
out
> and buy a couple gigs more memory figuring that would speed things up. But I
> think we may want to look and see if we can tune what we have and go from
there.
>
> Now, on this application server, there is only one user--and it runs all the
> production applications. So I'm thinking that there are probably some kernel
> setting that are limiting what this one user is allowed to do...which would be
a
> wonderful thing if there were many users competing for system resources. But
> like I said, there is only the one user on the system running about 30
separate
> programs at any given time. These programs are all home-grown. This server
> doesn't run anything other than the operating system and these programs...no
> database stuff, no email, no anything extra at all. Can anyone recommend what
> kernel settings I might want to tune to allow for this single user? I
wouldn't
> mind at all if it was allowed to use up 95% of all system resources if it
wanted
> to.
>
> And...once I make these inevitable kernel changes...what's the best way to
> monitor this users processes to see how he is sucking up the system
> resources--and then at that point see if we need to upgrade anything. We have
> "top" running constantly...as well as Big Brother (as a side note, this
system's
> load averages according to both Top and BB range anywhere from 3.5 to 11.7,
but
> it usually stays around 6 or so--which can't be a good thing).
>
> Well...as always, any and all help is appreciated.
>
> Jonathan Williams
> Unix Systems Administrator
> The Shubert Organization, Inc.
>
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