Marc G. Fournier writes:
1. What variables on a server should be monitored to determine how busy a
server is?
I am a fairly new sysadmin.. who inheritted nearly 20 machines, so take my
comments with a gain of salt. Before that the most I ever had was 7, mostly
DB, FreeBSD machines :-)
.. and.. Hi Marc. :)
I think it comes down to primarily 3 factors
* RAM
* CPU
* DISK
If you are hitting Swap, you are either running too many programs/services
or too many users.
Same for CPU
Disk are different in that the same number of disks can perform different
based on what raid controller and what type of RAID.
I use top and load average to determine if a machine is up to capacity in
memory/cpu.
I use vmstat to determine if the disk subsystem is falling behind.
BIG NOTE:
The one thing that I have yet to really pay much attention is the network
performance. Fortunately we just hired someone who has significantly more
experience on that area. :-)
2. Are there any tools that I can run to give me a point in time "summary"
of how busy a server is based on these several factors?
I think there are lots of tools. Some vary from SNMP capture/graphing, to
custom made tools done in-house. I think it's a combination of how difficult
it is to setup vs what you need to monitor.
At work we are just starting to roll out an SNMP tool. The new hire is
leading the effort so I am not very familiar with the setups.. the one thing
I see so far is that ultimately, there usually are things that one needs to
monitor that is unique to your organization and you need to either integrate
a program into the tool or do your own independant monitoring of that
particular resource.
I think the ISP list may be a good resource since the needs of the average
user are different from ISPs/companies with numerous machines.
Basically, I'd like to keep track of multiple servers and be able to say
"this server is running >75% of capacity, time to upgrade or move things
off of it" ... if its possible ... ?
In my opinion, for the most part, the answer is yes. The problem is usually
how long it's going to take you to setup the environment to monitor the
servers.
The program we went with was chosen because the new hire was familiar with
it, but a search on the archives for "monitoring tools" will give you a long
list of programs and opinions of which are easier.
If I had the time, I think I would likely write my own tool. This way I will
be able to measure exactly what I want. Right now I thik we will cover most
basics with the tool we are going with, but will need to still do our own
custom apps to monitor a number of resources and metrics.
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