How to monitor CPU - Windows Server Capacity Management 101(9 of 12)

As promised today we'll be looking at how to monitor CPU.

Thresholds

When dealing with thresholds there is no one size fits all but a good rule of thumb is 70% for a warning and 85% for an alarm these can and should be tweaked when you have a better idea of performance thresholds for your CPU.

Additionally it is good to have a thresholds in place for when a CPU is being under-utilized maybe threshold for 20% and 10% this lets you know which machine could be pushed harder.

Trends

When setting up a trend, you have to remember the longer the trend the less reliable it is. A good rule of thumb for trend is 3 months, as this gives a reasonably reliable trend and also lets you know within time to make a hardware change.

Reports

CPU Total Utilization Estd% - Report Example

Above is an example of an Estimated CPU core busy over a month for my computer with a trend going forward 1 month, you can see quickly that the trend line is going down. This kind of chart is very simple to create with a capacity management tool like athene^®.

On Wednesday I'll be dealing with Memory and how to monitor this. Don't forget to take a look at our workshops, there are some great ones coming up soon

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/online-workshops/index.html

Josh Worth

Consultant

Linux Server – Disk Utilization (12 of 17) Capacity Management, Telling the Story

On Wednesday I said today I would share with you an example of a report on disk utilization of a Linux server. 

The report is illustrated below and the reason I chose to share this report is that it is an instance based report, displaying the top 5 disks and their utilization on this system.

You have the ability to pick out our top 5 or our bottom 5 to display to your audience because we don’t want too much ‘noise’ on our chart.

We want to keep things clear and concise, don’t flood reports with meaningless data and keep it relevant to our audience.

On Monday I'll be looking at how you can show correlation on reports, in the meantime don't forget to register for our next free webinar 'Capacity Planning & Forecasting using Analytic Modeling' 

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/index.html

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant

Management Overview Applications (8 of 17) Capacity Management, Telling the Story

Let’s move on to what we will see at the management level, particularly for applications. This is called an application summary.

The example summary below shows grouping by category, in this instance by location.

We have a call center, a warehouse, datamart and sales and it shows you that horizontal scale progress through use of color. For each arrival workflow that we have coming in it shows you the progress.

Application Summary

As you can see there are some reds being displayed in this report, the comment section clearly describes what these issues are.

This allows you to clearly display to management the issues, what is causing them and enables you to discuss with them what you are doing about it.

In this case, the warehouse needs some new architecture.

On Friday I'll be discussing resources and costs, in the meantime sign up to our Community and get access to our resources - white papers, Techtips and on-demand webinars.http://www.metron-athene.com/_resources

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant

Different stories for different audiences ( 4 of 17) Capacity Management, Telling the Story

When we say different audiences what we are talking about is the different layers of your Organization, the people who are involved in the process. We’ll start with the ‘C level executives’.

“C” level executives

At the very top we have the “C” level executives. When we are telling the story to our “C” level executives these are the key points that we need to make sure we follow when presenting our information:

•         Keep the information concise – we have to make sure that they understand very quickly what we are trying to say to them.

•         Elevator talk – keep your information as brief and to the point as possible, they don’t have the time or inclination to wade through pages of reports.

•         Summary and findings first – make sure at the top there is always something called the management or executive summary, where it clearly states the relevant points of our findings. They just need the facts.

•         Findings – Do we need more resources? When are we going to hit our limit? What hardware do we require? How much money do we need and when do we need the money? Make sure that the requests are clear and concise.

•         Leave detail reports in pocket – The detail which provides the basis of our findings is important as it backs up our management or executive summary. They need to be included but are unlikely to be read at this level.

Business owners

At the Business level, you will need to focus in on a specific area and the business owner will want to know:

•         What are the trends for their area?

•         How does it affect their area?

•         What do they need to budget for?

The information provided to the business owner will be only that which is pertinent to their department.

Technical

At the technical level you will need to provide all the information that went in to the pocket of the management or executive summary.

•         Show me the details – they will want to see the full reports, graphs, data and drill downs. At this level the figures mean something.

•         Show me the trends – they will want to see the trend reports and the what if scenarios.

Be prepared when imparting good or bad news at any level – anticipate your audience reaction and be ready for it.

On Wednesday I’ll be looking at the different presentation mediums that we have at our disposal.

Check out our on-demand webinars and watch at your leisure
http://www.metron-athene.com/_resources/on-demand-webinars/login.asp

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant