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Performance Management Guide

Estimating the Resource Requirements of the Workload

Unless you are purchasing a software package that comes with detailed resource-requirement documentation, estimating resources can be the most difficult task in the performance-planning process. The difficulty has several causes, as follows:

Make your estimate as realistic as the specific situation allows, using the following guidelines:

Keep in mind that independent software vendors (ISV) often have sizing guidelines for their applications.

In estimating resources, we are primarily interested in four dimensions (in no particular order):

CPU time
Processor cost of the workload
Disk accesses
Rate at which the workload generates disk reads or writes
LAN traffic
Number of packets the workload generates and the number of bytes of data exchanged
Real memory
Amount of RAM the workload requires

The following sections discuss how to determine these values in various situations.

Measuring Workload Resources

If the real program, a comparable program, or a prototype is available for measurement, the choice of technique depends on the following:

Measuring a Complete Workload on a Dedicated System

Using a dedicated system is the ideal situation because we can use measurements that include system overhead as well as the cost of individual processes.

To measure overall system performance for most of the system activity, use the vmstat command:

# vmstat 5 >vmstat.output

This gives us a picture of the state of the system every 5 seconds during the measurement run. The first set of vmstat output contains the cumulative data from the last boot to the start of the vmstat command. The remaining sets are the results for the preceding interval, in this case 5 seconds. A typical set of vmstat output on a system looks similar to the following:

kthr     memory             page              faults        cpu
----- ----------- ------------------------ ------------ -----------
 r  b   avm   fre  re  pi  po  fr   sr  cy  in   sy  cs us sy id wa
 0  1 75186   192   0   0   0   0    1   0 344 1998 403  6  2 92  0

To measure CPU and disk activity, use the iostat command:

# iostat 5 >iostat.output

This gives us a picture of the state of the system every 5 seconds during the measurement run. The first set of iostat output contains the cumulative data from the last boot to the start of the iostat command. The remaining sets are the results for the preceding interval, in this case 5 seconds. A typical set of iostat output on a system looks similar to the following:

tty:      tin         tout   avg-cpu:  % user    % sys     % idle    % iowait
          0.0          0.0              19.4      5.7       70.8       4.1

Disks:        % tm_act     Kbps      tps    Kb_read   Kb_wrtn
hdisk0           8.0      34.5       8.2         12       164
hdisk1           0.0       0.0       0.0          0         0
cd0              0.0       0.0       0.0          0         0

To measure memory, use the svmon command. The svmon -G command gives a picture of overall memory use. The statistics are in terms of 4 KB pages (example from AIX 5.2):

# svmon -G

               size      inuse       free        pin    virtual
memory        65527      65406        121       5963      74711
pg space     131072      37218

               work       pers       clnt        lpage
pin            5972          0          0            0
in use        54177       9023       2206            0

In this example, the machine's 256 MB memory is fully used. About 83 percent of RAM is in use for working segments, the read/write memory of running programs (the rest is for caching files). If there are long-running processes in which we are interested, we can review their memory requirements in detail. The following example determines the memory used by a process of user hoetzel.

# ps -fu hoetzel
     UID   PID  PPID   C    STIME    TTY  TIME CMD
 hoetzel 24896 33604   0 09:27:35  pts/3  0:00 /usr/bin/ksh
 hoetzel 32496 25350   6 15:16:34  pts/5  0:00 ps -fu hoetzel

# svmon -P 24896

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
     Pid Command        Inuse      Pin     Pgsp  Virtual   64-bit    Mthrd    LPage
   24896 ksh             7547     4045     1186     7486        N        N        N

  Vsid     Esid Type Description           LPage   Inuse   Pin Pgsp Virtual
     0        0 work kernel seg                -    6324  4041 1186  6324
6a89aa        d work shared library text       -    1064     0    0  1064
72d3cb        2 work process private           -      75     4    0    75
401100        1 pers code,/dev/hd2:6250        -      59     0    -     -
 3d40f        f work shared library data       -      23     0    0    23
16925a        - pers /dev/hd4:447              -       2     0    -     -

The working segment (5176), with 4 pages in use, is the cost of this instance of the ksh program. The 2619-page cost of the shared library and the 58-page cost of the ksh program are spread across all of the running programs and all instances of the ksh program, respectively.

If we believe that our 256 MB system is larger than necessary, use the rmss command to reduce the effective size of the machine and remeasure the workload. If paging increases significantly or response time deteriorates, we have reduced memory too much. This technique can be continued until we find a size that runs our workload without degradation. See Assessing Memory Requirements Through the rmss Command for more information on this technique.

The primary command for measuring network usage is the netstat program. The following example shows the activity of a specific Token-Ring interface:

# netstat -I tr0 5
   input    (tr0)     output            input   (Total)    output
 packets  errs  packets  errs colls   packets  errs  packets  errs colls
35552822 213488 30283693     0     0  35608011 213488 30338882     0     0
     300     0      426     0     0       300     0      426     0     0
     272     2      190     0     0       272     2      190     0     0
     231     0      192     0     0       231     0      192     0     0
     143     0      113     0     0       143     0      113     0     0
     408     1      176     0     0       408     1      176     0     0

The first line of the report shows the cumulative network traffic since the last boot. Each subsequent line shows the activity for the preceding 5-second interval.

Measuring a Complete Workload on a Production System

The techniques of measurement on production systems are similar to those on dedicated systems, but we must be careful to avoid degrading system performance.

Probably the most cost-effective tool is the vmstat command, which supplies data on memory, I/O, and CPU usage in a single report. If the vmstat intervals are kept reasonably long, for example, 10 seconds, the average cost is relatively low. See Identifying the Performance-Limiting Resource for more information on using the vmstat command.

Measuring a Partial Workload on a Production System

By partial workload, we mean measuring a part of the production system's workload for possible transfer to or duplication on a different system. Because this is a production system, we must be as unobtrusive as possible. At the same time, we must analyze the workload in more detail to distinguish between the parts we are interested in and those we are not. To do a partial measurement, we must discover what the workload elements of interest have in common. Are they:

Depending on the commonality, we could use one of the following

# ps -ef | grep pgmname
# ps -fuusername, . . .
# ps -ftttyname, . . .

to identify the processes of interest and report the cumulative CPU time consumption of those processes. We can then use the svmon command (judiciously) to assess the memory use of the processes.

Measuring an Individual Program

Many tools are available for measuring the resource consumption of individual programs. Some of these programs are capable of more comprehensive workload measurements as well, but are too intrusive for use on production systems. Most of these tools are discussed in depth in the chapters that discuss tuning for minimum consumption of specific resources. Some of the more prominent are:

svmon
Measures the real memory used by a process. Discussed in Determining How Much Memory Is Being Used.
time
Measures the elapsed execution time and CPU consumption of an individual program. Discussed in Using the time Command to Measure CPU Use.
tprof
Measures the relative CPU consumption of programs, subroutine libraries, and the operating system's kernel. Discussed in Using the tprof Program to Analyze Programs for CPU Use.
vmstat -s
Measures the I/O load generated by a program. Discussed in Assessing Overall Disk I/O with the vmstat Command.

Estimating Resources Required by a New Program

It is impossible to make precise estimates of unwritten programs. The invention and redesign that take place during the coding phase defy prediction, but the following guidelines can help you to get a general sense of the requirements. As a starting point, a minimal program would need the following:

To the above, add the basic cost allowances for demands implied by the design (the units given are for example purposes only):

Transforming Program-Level Estimates to Workload Estimates

The best method for estimating peak and typical resource requirements is to use a queuing model such as BEST/1. Static models can be used, but you run the risk of overestimating or underestimating the peak resource. In either case, you need to understand how multiple programs in a workload interact from the standpoint of resource requirements.

If you are building a static model, use a time interval that is the specified worst-acceptable response time for the most frequent or demanding program (usually they are the same). Determine which programs will typically be running during each interval, based on your projected number of users, their think time, their key entry rate, and the anticipated mix of operations.

Use the following guidelines:

Note
Remember that these guidelines are intended for use only when no extensive measurement is possible. Any application-specific measurement that can be used in place of a guideline will considerably improve the accuracy of the estimate.

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