AIX Monitoring Support on the Horizon
We’ve got a lot of new exciting progress making it’s way into Load Tester 4.2. Among these features, Load Tester 4.2 will be introducing an Advanced Server Analysis™ module designed for AIX servers. Like our other Advanced Server Analysis™ agents, the AIX module is capable of running offline, and will continue to collect data about your server even when normal connectivity to the server has been overloaded (unlike some of our competitors solutions). The monitoring agent can collect vital information from your server, including:
- CPU
- Memory
- Disk activity (reads / writes / % utilization)
- Network activity (bandwidth in & out / TCP connections)
The agent is also capable of integrating AIX specific CPU metrics. For example, it collects CPU time as
- CPU Utilization: average percent utilization among all logical processors
- Physical CPU Utilization: average percent utilization by the current partition among physical processors which are currently assigned to the partition
- Entitled CPU Utilization: the percent CPU utilization relative to the processor time an AIX partition is entitled to receive. This metric may exceed 100% when a partition is receiving more CPU time than it is entitled from other partitions on the host.
In terms of compatibility, the agent is tested to run on AIX 5.3 with POWER 5, and AIX 6.1 with POWER 6, and is compatible with newer versions and hardware. We believe this monitoring is far more detailed than our competitors AIX solutions, but we welcome any questions or feedback. Of course, our demos will be free with the 4.2 release, and our friendly sales staff can offer a commentary for anyone who would like further guidance.
Happy Testing!
-Frank
Engineer at Web Performance
Frank is an engineer for Web Performance. He is also an advocate for correct fire safety procedures whenever applying massive load to production test rigs.