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tiwang
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Understanding the output from esxtop ?

hi out there

I am pretty new to esx and need some clarification to help understanding the output from esxtop. We are running esxi 4.1 and I try to figure out if we have some cpu contention problems. We are running on dell blade centers with 4 8 core cpu's (ht disabled). I am of course hunting some sluggish response times which could be performance related - but I am not sure how to interprete the numbers here from esxtop - what is normale and when will we get a sluggish response from the system - here - try to take a look - here are some of the vm's running on a esxhost - does this look as a healthy system?

When will %RDY be a problem? and are the other columns here which I should be aware of?


     ID    GID NAME        NWLD   %USED    %RUN    %SYS   %WAIT    %RDY   %IDLE  %OVRLP   %CSTP  %MLMTD  %SWPWT
      1      1 idle                                 32 2077.62 3200.00    0.01    0.00 3200.00    0.00   19.10    0.00    0.00    0.00
9031944  9031944 db-12d1.asp1.ad    11  135.83  217.14    3.88  854.67    1.60  559.96    1.81    0.00    0.00    0.00
7885289  7885289 ts-14-47541.asp     9  117.35  200.18    1.99  677.29    0.62  384.41    1.06    0.00    0.00    0.00
7885220  7885220 ts-2am05.asp1.a     9   71.64  123.20    0.74  754.37    0.63  460.65    0.75    0.00    0.00    0.00
10526713 10526713 ts-12-vore2.asp    10   62.62  103.62    3.39  870.88    1.12  576.75    0.98    0.02    0.00    0.00
9993776   9993776 ts-8-31051.asp1     8   59.66  102.12    0.62  677.71    0.76  384.30    0.84    0.00    0.00    0.00
7885198   7885198 ts-8e2.asp1.adp    10   56.55   92.47    1.57  882.45    0.87  588.58    0.71    0.01    0.00    0.00
10525196 10525196 ts-12e1.asp1.ad     9   50.01   84.01    1.09  793.40    0.81  499.51    0.54    0.01    0.00    0.00
9662947   9662947 ap-12b1.asp1.ad     5   28.13   47.98    0.70  439.57    0.27  146.87    0.36    0.00    0.00    0.00
10304985 10304985 ts-1cs01.asp1.a     7   11.80   17.26    0.10  665.22    0.48  371.77    0.14    0.00    0.00    0.00
10819215 10819215 ap-8o1.asp1.adp     5    5.68    8.89    0.30  478.76    0.26  186.12    0.07    0.00    0.00    0.00
10303965 10303965 ap-8c1.asp1.adp     5    4.16    7.05    0.17  480.47    0.30  188.05    0.09    0.00    0.00    0.00

and the topline for the pcpu's:

8:23:18am up 143 days 23:08, 392 worlds; CPU load average: 0.22, 0.27, 0.27
PCPU USED(%):  19  23  21  20  22  19  32  19  18  18  20  16  18  17  17  17  19  19  20  18  19  22  20  23  18  21  19  19  19  20  18  18 AVG:  20
PCPU UTIL(%):  31  37  34  32  35  31  44  30  33  33  35  30  33  31  31  30  34  34  37  33  34  41  35  41  32  37  35  34  35  36  33  33 AVG:  34

best regards /ti

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chriswahl
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I typically don't see %RDY being an issue when it's below 5%. Certainly a value of 1.6% is nothing to sweat over.

This is a good resource for answering your questions on what each number does, and common thresholds to indicate issues:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/esxtop/

VCDX #104 (DCV, NV) ஃ WahlNetwork.com ஃ @ChrisWahl ஃ Author, Networking for VMware Administrators

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john23
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check this kb:

kb.vmware.com/kb/1037718

Thanks -A Read my blogs: www.openwriteup.com
tiwang
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hi again

since I am a newbee I need somebody's opinon to compare with - what do other see on their systems - impact on responsetime for %USED, %SYS, %WAIT, %RDY and %IDLE - I can understand from this http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/perf_analysis_methods_tn.pdf that I have to be aware of %RDY but I still need some sort of baseline to understand the impact - or when the alarm has to fire - if some of the numbers look weird (when do they look weird)

So - somebody with some experience they want to share?

best regards /ti

chriswahl
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I typically don't see %RDY being an issue when it's below 5%. Certainly a value of 1.6% is nothing to sweat over.

This is a good resource for answering your questions on what each number does, and common thresholds to indicate issues:

http://www.yellow-bricks.com/esxtop/

VCDX #104 (DCV, NV) ஃ WahlNetwork.com ஃ @ChrisWahl ஃ Author, Networking for VMware Administrators
kevin8611
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this pdf is pretty helpful!!Thx really

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Marmotte94
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Hi,

This is the best paper I know to throubleshoot esxtop.

http://www.running-system.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/ESXTOP_vSphere6.pdf

Have Fun.

Please, visit my blog http://www.purplescreen.eu/
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