Document revision date: 30 March 2001
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Availability Manager User's Guide


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Chapter 3
Getting Information about Nodes

Note

Before you start this chapter, be sure to read the explanation of data collection, events, thresholds, and occurrences in Chapter 1.

This chapter describes the node data that the Availability Manager displays by default and more detailed data that you can choose to display. Node summary data is the only data displayed by default. (Differences are noted whenever information displayed for OpenVMS nodes differs from that displayed for Windows NT nodes.)

On OpenVMS systems, you can turn on and off the collection of individual types of data, and you can a specify several interval times for the collection and display of events. These are discussed in Chapter 6.

3.1 Node Panes

After you select a group of nodes in the Group pane, the Availability Manager automatically displays data for each node within that group on the Node pane of the Application window (Figure 1-3). The following sections describe the data displayed for OpenVMS and Windows NT Node panes.

3.1.1 OpenVMS Node Pane

Figure 3-1 shows an example of an OpenVMS Node pane.

Figure 3-1 OpenVMS Node Pane


Data displayed in red on your screen indicates that the amount is above the threshold set for that field.

For each OpenVMS node and group it recognizes, the Availability Manager displays the data shown in Table 3-1. The table lists the event related to each type of data; events that exceed either the default thresholds or the defaults that you set are displayed in red on the screen.

Refer to Section 6.5 for information about setting event thresholds. Appendix B describes OpenVMS and Windows NT events.

Table 3-1 OpenVMS Node Data
Data Description of Data Related Event
Node Name Name of the node being monitored. n/a
CPU Percentage of CPU usage of all processes on the node. n/a
MEM Percentage of space in memory that all processes on the node use. LOMEMY
BIO Buffered I/O rate of processes on the node. HIBIOR
DIO Direct I/O usage of processes on the node. HIDIOR
CPU Qs Number of processes in one of the following states: MWAIT, COLPG, PFW, FPG. n/a
OS Version Version of the operating system on the node. n/a
Hardware Model Hardware model of the node. n/a

3.1.2 Windows NT Node Pane

Figure 3-2 shows a sample Windows NT Node pane. From the group selected, the Availability Manager displays all the nodes with which it can communicate.

Figure 3-2 Windows NT Node Pane


For each Windows NT node in the group you select, the Availability Manager displays the data shown in Table 3-2.

Table 3-2 Windows NT Node Data
Data Description
Node Name Name of the node being monitored.
CPU Percentage of CPU usage of all the processes on the node.
MEM Percentage of memory that is in use.
DIO Direct I/O usage of processes on the node.
Processes Number of processes on the node.
Threads Number of threads on the node. A thread is a basic executable entity that can execute instructions in a processor.
Events The number of events on the node. An event is used when two or more threads want to synchronize execution.
Semaphores The number of semaphores on the node. Threads use semaphores to control access to data structures that they share with other threads.
Mutexes The number of mutexes on the node. Threads use mutexes to ensure that only one thread executes a section of code at a time.
Sections The number of sections on the node. A section is a portion of virtual memory created by a process for storing data. A process can share sections with other processes.
OS Version Version of the operating system on the node.
HW Model Hardware model of the node.

3.2 Node Data Pages

The following sections describe node data pages, which you can display in either of two ways:

The menu bar on each node data page contains the options described in Table 3-3.

Table 3-3 Node Data Page Menu Bar
Menu Option Description For More Information
File Contains the Close option, which you can choose to exit from the pages. n/a
View Contains options that allow you to view data from another perspective. See specific pages.
Fix Contains options that allow you to resolve various resource availability problems and improve system performance. Chapter 5
Customize Contains options that allow you to organize data collection and analysis and to display data by filtering and customizing Availability Manager data. Chapter 6

The following sections describe these node data pages:
Node Data Page (or Pages) Reference
Node Summary Section 3.2.1
CPU Modes and Process Summaries Section 3.2.2
Memory Summaries Section 3.2.3
OpenVMS I/O Summary and Page/Swap Files Section 3.2.4
Disk Summaries Section 3.2.5
OpenVMS Lock Contention Section 3.2.6
OpenVMS Cluster Summary Section 3.2.7
OpenVMS Network Interconnect for the System Communications Architecture (NISCA) Section 3.2.8
OpenVMS Single Process Section 3.2.9

3.2.1 Node Summary

When you double-click a node name, operating system (OS) version, or hardware model in an OpenVMS or Windows NT Node pane, the Availability Manager displays the Node Summary page (Figure 3-3).

Figure 3-3 Node Summary Page


On this page, the following information is displayed for the node selected:
Data Description
Model System hardware model name.
OS Version Name and version of the operating system.
Uptime Time (in days, hours, minutes, and seconds) since the last reboot.
Memory Total amount of physical memory (in megabytes) found on the system.
CPUs Number of active CPUs on the node.

3.2.2 CPU Modes and Process Summaries

By clicking the CPU tab, you can display CPU panes that contain more detailed statistics about CPU mode usage and process summaries than the Node Summary does. You can use the CPU panes to diagnose issues that CPU-intensive users or CPU bottlenecks might cause. For OpenVMS nodes, you can also display information about specific CPU processes.

When you double-click a value under the CPU or CPU Qs heading on either an OpenVMS or a Windows NT Node pane, or when you click the CPU tab, the Availability Manager displays the CPU Modes Summary in the top pane and, by default in the bottom pane, CPU Modes Detail. You can use the View menu to select the CPU Process Summary in the bottom pane (see Section 3.2.2.4).

CPU modes summaries and process summary panes are described in the following sections. Note that there are differences between the pages displayed for OpenVMS and Windows NT nodes.

3.2.2.1 Windows NT CPU Modes

Figure 3-4 shows a sample Windows NT CPU Modes page.

Figure 3-4 Windows NT CPU Modes Page


The top pane of the Windows NT CPU Modes page is a summary of Windows NT CPU usage, listed by type of mode.

On the left, the following CPU modes are listed:

On the graph, values that exceed thresholds are displayed in red. To the right of the graph are current and extreme amounts for each mode.

Current and extreme amounts are also displayed for the following values:

The bottom pane of the Windows NT CPU Modes contains modes details. The following data is displayed:
Data Description
CPU ID Decimal value representing the identity of a processor in a multiprocessing system. On a uniprocessor, this value is always CPU #00.
Mode % Graphical representation of the percentage of active modes on that CPU. The color displayed matches the mode color on the graph on the top pane.
DPCs Queued Rate that deferred procedure call (DPC) objects are queued to this processor's DPC queue.
DPC Rate Average rate that DPC objects are queued to this processor's DPC queue per clock tick.
DPC Bypasses Rate that dispatch interrupts were short-circuited.
APC Bypasses Rate that kernel asynchronous procedure call (APC) interrupts were short-circuited.

3.2.2.2 OpenVMS CPU Modes Summary

Figure 3-5 shows a sample OpenVMS CPU Modes summary, which is the top pane of the CPU Modes page.

Figure 3-5 OpenVMS CPU Modes Summary Pane


The CPU Modes summary pane shows OpenVMS CPU usage by type of mode. On symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) nodes, percentages are averaged across all the CPUs and are displayed as a single value.

The following table shows the alphabetic symbols that represent CPU modes:
Symbol Mode
K Kernel
E Executive
S Supervisor
U User
I Interrupt
C Compatibility
M Multiprocessor synchronization
N Null

The bars in the graph represent the percentage of CPU cycles used. Values that are lower than the thresholds are displayed in green; values that exceed thresholds are displayed in red. To the right of the graph are current and extreme amounts for each mode.

Below the graph, the Availability Manager displays the state of certain CPU process queues. The amounts displayed for COM are the sums of the queue lengths of processes in the COM and COMO states. The amounts displayed for WAIT are the sums of the queue lengths of processes in the miscellaneous WAIT, COLPG, CEF, PFW, and FPG states. (See Appendix A for explanations of CPU process states.)

3.2.2.3 OpenVMS CPU Modes Detail

The bottom pane of the CPU Modes page contains CPU modes details, as shown in Figure 3-6.

Figure 3-6 OpenVMS CPU Modes Detail Pane


In the OpenVMS CPU Modes Detail pane, the following data is displayed:
Data Description
CPU ID Decimal value representing the identity of a processor in a multiprocessing system. On a uniprocessor, this value is always CPU #00.
State One of the following CPU states: Boot, Booted, Init, Rejected, Reserved, Run, Stopped, Stopping, or Timeout.
Mode % Graphical representation of the percentage of active modes on that CPU. The color displayed coincides with the mode color on the graph on the top pane.
PID Process identifier (PID) value of the process that is using the CPU. If the PID is unknown to the console application, the internal PID (IPID) is listed.
Process Name Name of the process active on the CPU. If no active process is found on the CPU, the name is listed as *** None ***.
Capabilities One or more of the following CPU capabilities: Primary, Quorum, Run, or Vector.

3.2.2.4 OpenVMS CPU Process Summary

To display the OpenVMS CPU Process Summary pane at the bottom of the CPU page, select CPU Process Summary from the View menu. Figure 3-7 shows a sample OpenVMS CPU Process Summary pane.

Figure 3-7 OpenVMS CPU Process Summary Pane


The OpenVMS CPU Process Summary pane displays the following data:
Data Description
PID Process identifier, a 32-bit value that uniquely identifies a process.
Process Name Name of the process active on the CPU.
Priority Computable (xx) and base (yy) process priority in the format xx/yy.
State One of the process states listed in Appendix A.
Rate Percentage of CPU time used by this process. This is the ratio of CPU time to elapsed time. The CPU rate is also displayed in the bar graph.
Wait Percentage of time the process is in the COM or COMO state.
Time Amount of actual CPU time charged to the process.

When you double-click a PID on the lower part of an OpenVMS CPU Process (Figure 3-7), Memory (Figure 3-9), or I/O (Figure 3-10) page, the Availability Manager displays an OpenVMS Single Process, where you can click tabs to display specific data about one process.

This data includes a combination of data elements from the CPU Process, Memory, and I/O pages, as well as data for specific quota utilization, current image, and queue wait time. These pages are described in Section 3.2.9.

3.2.3 Memory Summaries

The Memory summary pages contain statistics about memory usage on the node you select. The Memory summary pages displayed for OpenVMS and Windows NT nodes are somewhat different, as described in the following sections.

3.2.3.1 Windows NT Memory Summary

You can display the Windows NT Memory in either of the following ways:

The Availability Manager then displays the Windows NT Memory page (Figure 3-8).

Figure 3-8 Windows NT Memory Page


The Current and Extreme amounts on the page display the data shown in the following table. The table also indicates what the graph amounts represent.
Data Description
Available Size (in bytes) of the virtual memory currently on the zeroed, free, and standby lists. Zeroed and free memory are ready for use, with zeroed memory cleared to zeros. Standby memory is removed from a process's working set but is still available. The graph shows the percentage of physical memory that is available for use.
Cache Number of bytes currently in use by the system cache. The system cache is used to buffer data retrieved from disk or LAN. The system cache uses memory not in use by active processes on the computer. The graph shows the percentage of physical memory devoted to the cache.
Paged Pool Number of bytes in paged pool, a system memory area where operating system components acquire space as they complete their tasks. Paged pool pages can be paged out to the paging file when the system does not access them for long periods of time. The graph shows the percentage of physical memory devoted to paged pool.
Nonpaged Pool Number of bytes in nonpaged pool, a system memory area where operating system components acquire space as they complete their tasks. Nonpaged pool pages cannot be paged out to the paging file; instead, they remain in memory as long as they are allocated. The graph shows the percentage of physical memory devoted to nonpaged pool.
Committed Bytes Amount of available virtual memory (the Commit Limit) that is in use. Note that the commit limit can change if the paging file is extended. The graph shows the percentage of the Commit Limit used by the Committed Bytes.
Commit Limit Size (in bytes) of virtual memory that can be committed without having to extend the paging files. If the paging files can be extended, this limit can be raised.

3.2.3.2 OpenVMS Memory Summary

When you double-click a value under the MEM heading in an OpenVMS Node pane, or if you click the Memory tab, the Availability Manager displays the OpenVMS Memory page (Figure 3-9).

Figure 3-9 OpenVMS Memory Page


The graph in the top pane shows memory distribution (Free, Used, Modified, Bad) as absolute values, in megabytes of memory. Current and extreme values are also listed for each type of memory distribution. (Free memory uses the lowest seen value as its extreme.)

The bottom pane displays the following data:
Data Description
PID Process identifier. A 32-bit value that uniquely identifies a process.
Process Name Name of the process.
Count Number of physical pages or pagelets of memory that the process is using for the working set count.
Size Number of pages or pagelets of memory the process is allowed to use for the working set size. The operating system periodically adjusts this value based on an analysis of page faults relative to CPU time used.
Extent Number of pages or pagelets of memory in the process's working set extent (WSEXTENT) quota as defined in the user authorization file (UAF). Number of pages or pagelets cannot exceed the value of the system parameter WSMAX.
Rate Number of page faults per second for the process.
I/O Rate of I/O read attempts necessary to satisfy page faults (also known as page read I/O or the hard fault rate).

When you double-click a PID on the lower part of an OpenVMS CPU Process (Figure 3-7), Memory (Figure 3-9), or I/O (Figure 3-10) page, the Availability Manager displays an OpenVMS Single Process, where you can click tabs to display specific data about one process. This data includes a combination of data from the CPU Process, Memory, and I/O pages, as well as data for specific quota utilization, current image, and queue wait time. These pages are described in Section 3.2.9.


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