Load average on a SPARC 690 MP running Oracle

A friend told me that the load average of their UNIX machine [where they are running Oracle 6.0.33 on a SPARC 690 MP machine with "lots" of users] is usually around 25 or higher. It has gone as high as 40!

I believe that he is talking about the load average figure that is part of the output of w command.

My question: Have you ever worked with this kind of loaded [overloaded] system? What makes this figure go so high and what can be done to reduce the load?

Most of the systems that I have worked with [mostly SPARCstations running Oracle] usually never go beyond 5.

Thanks for your time.

PS: According to my friend, even with this kind of load, interaction at the shell prompt is normal [ i.e. no delay in response].

Ayub

ayub_at_krypton.stanford.edu Received on Thu Dec 10 1992 - 00:03:25 CET