From oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org Sat Dec 4 09:56:30 2004 Return-Path: Received: from air189.startdedicated.com (root@localhost) by orafaq.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id iB4FuUT13136 for ; Sat, 4 Dec 2004 09:56:30 -0600 X-ClientAddr: 206.53.239.180 Received: from turing.freelists.org (freelists-180.iquest.net [206.53.239.180]) by air189.startdedicated.com (8.11.6/8.11.6) with ESMTP id iB4FuUu13131 for ; Sat, 4 Dec 2004 09:56:30 -0600 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by turing.freelists.org (Avenir Technologies Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP id 6B58472C7E8; Sat, 4 Dec 2004 11:02:53 -0500 (EST) Received: from turing.freelists.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (turing [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 19392-47; Sat, 4 Dec 2004 11:02:53 -0500 (EST) Received: from turing (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by turing.freelists.org (Avenir Technologies Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP id CDCD672C384; Sat, 4 Dec 2004 11:01:18 -0500 (EST) Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v619) In-Reply-To: <009a01c4d9cc$103b1600$6601a8c0@CVMLAP02> References: <009a01c4d9cc$103b1600$6601a8c0@CVMLAP02> Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Message-Id: <3B266862-460D-11D9-A1FD-000A9596FBAE@furfly.net> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit From: Janine Sisk Subject: Re: cpu average load Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 10:57:42 -0500 To: "oracle-l@freelists.org" X-archive-position: 13125 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org Errors-To: oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org X-original-sender: janine@furfly.net Precedence: normal Reply-To: janine@furfly.net X-list: oracle-l X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new at freelists.org 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