Re: cpu average load

FWIW, I do think there is some value in measuring things like CPU load.   We host database-backed websites, and often our first and most reliable indicator that something is wrong with a site is the load on the system going way up. By the time the site's users complain to the site owner, and they complain to us, the problem has usually been going on for hours. Since these situations are usually caused by someone trying to download all the content on the site, by the time we know about it and can stop it a significant amount of content has already been "slurped", lots of users have been annoyed, and sometimes our client ends up with a big bandwidth bill. Another common cause is that some of our clients do their own programming and they can write some real whopper queries at times; again, by the time the complaints reach us the problem has usually been ongoing for some time. We are able to deal with these situations as quickly as possible by keeping an eye on the CPU load and investigating whenever it rises alarmingly.

Of course, the first step of this is to figure out what a normal CPU load is for each server. I think the only way you can really do that is to keep an eye on it for a while when things are running normally, and establish a baseline. It does not really matter what the number is, as long as things are humming along and everyone using the system is happy with it's performance.

I think my situation is a bit different than most of you; my users are not in-house, and my Oracle instances are, indirectly through the web sites, hanging out there for anyone to poke at. So my experience may not apply to the rest of you, and maybe not even to Paula's situation, but I offer it anyway as one more perspective on the question.

janine

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l