UNIX® Fault Management: A Guide for System Administration

Collecting System Performance Data

Users call their IT department when they have delays in accessing data or applications. Good tools are needed to help an operator pinpoint the source of the problem. This section covers some of the interesting performance and resource-utilization metrics, and the tools available to collect data about these metrics.

A wide range of conditions may result in resource and performance problems. Running out of available memory may be caused by a failure of a memory component or by a memory leak in an application. A sudden rise in CPU utilization could be an indication of processor failure or the introduction on the system of a CPU-intensive application. Analysis is needed to determine whether resource problems can ...