Re: system load

[Viktor Pavlenko <vp@example.com>]

>>>>> On Fri, 1 Dec 2000 11:34:45 +0000, Simon Cozens <simon@example.com> said:

    SC> On Fri, Dec 01, 2000 at 05:43:43PM +0900, Viktor Pavlenko
    SC> wrote:
    >> >From xload manpage: xload - system load average display for X
    >> What is system load?
 
    SC> Load average is the average number of processes running in the
    SC> previous (uhm, let me try to remember) minute, five minutes
    SC> and ten minutes. I think.  The higher it gets, the more work
    SC> your processes are demanding, and the more likely things are
    SC> going to start swapping and thrashing.

Are demanding what? Memory, CPU or both?..

Actually, I've been looking for a standard monitoring tool to watch
the system behavior during load tests. I use top but it's rather
tiresome. We had a situation when an Oracle process went frantic and
started consuming up to 94% of CPU but normal amount of memory.

If xload shows only memory usage, it won't show high CPU load...

Also, I should say that it's HPUX, and I'm sure they won't allow me to
install a nice free monitoring program there...

Thanks.

Viktor