Operating System Monitor

Use

This monitor monitors operating system data for any application servers and host systems. The values are collected by the operating system collector SAPOSCOL. You can also monitor this data with the operating system monitor, which is assigned as the analysis method for most of the nodes of this monitor.

Prerequisites

To be able to display operating system data for a particular host with this monitor, the operating system collector SAPOSCOL must be installed on that server (see Installing the Operating System Collector SAPOSCOL).

Features

The monitor contains the following monitoring tree elements (MTEs):

MTE Name (MTE Class)	Meaning
CPU (CPU)	Information about the CPU of a host system
CPU_Utilization (CPU_Utilization)	Average usage of the CPU in a host system; the value shows how intensively the CPU is used and how much processing capacity is still available
5minLoadAverage (5minLoadAverage)	Average number of processes in a host system that are ready for execution but must wait to be processed by the CPU
Idle (Idle)	Idle time for all CPUs in the system
Paging (Paging)	Exchange of data pages between the main memory of a host system and the overflow store in a paging file on the hard disk; paging occurs if the main memory is not large enough for the contexts of all running processes
Page_In (Page_In)	Average number of page-ins per second; a page-in occurs if a process must access a data page that is not available in the main memory. Before the process can be continued, the operating system must retrieve the page from the paging file
Page_Out (Page_Out)	Average number of page-outs per second (page-out occurs if a page is stored out of the main memory to make room for the pages required by other processes)
Commit_Charge (Commit_Charge)	Total physical and virtual memory used by the operating system and programs (only for Microsoft Windows)
Commit_ChargeFree (CommitChargeFreeSpace)	Available commit charge: difference between the maximum available and the currently used commit charge (only for Microsoft Windows)
Commit_Percent (CommitChargePercent_Used)	Proportion of the maximum available commit charge currently used (only for Microsoft Windows)
Swap_Space (Swap_Space)	Storage space on the hard disk on which data that is not currently required is stored out of the main memory, so that there is space in the main memory for the program currently being executed (only for UNIX platforms)
Freespace (SwapFreespace)	Free swap space (only for UNIX platforms)
Percentage_Used (SwapPercentage_Used)	Percentage usage of the swap space (only for UNIX platforms)
OS_Collector (OS_Collector)	Status of the operating system collector SAPOSCOL
State (OS_COL_STATE)	Status of the operating system collector SAPOSCOL
Lan (Lan)	Information about a Local Area Network (LAN), broken down by the LANs installed on this host
Packets_In (LanPacketsIn)	Incoming packets per second in a LAN at the interface of a host system
Packets_Out (LanPacketsOut)	Outgoing packets per second in a LAN at the interface of a host system
Collisions (LanCollisions)	Collisions in the LAN, in which two stations transport a packet at the same time on the same channel; this leads to the destruction of both packets and means that they must be sent again
Monitored Processes (MonitoredProcessesSum)	Monitored processes on this host (see Monitoring Selected Processes with SAPOSCOL)

Activities

To start the monitor, follow the procedure below:

Start the Alert Monitor using transaction RZ20 or choose CCMS → Control/Monitoring → Alert Monitor.
On the CCMS Monitor Sets screen, expand the SAP CCMS Monitor Templates set.
Start the Operating System monitor from the list by double-clicking it.

Procedure if an Alert Is Triggered

The following table provides information about what to do if an alert is triggered in this monitor:

MTE Name	Procedure
CPU CPU_Utilization	Many factors could lead to an excessively high CPU utilization, and you should therefore perform a detailed analysis. If the problem was caused by too many active processes in the host system, you could, for example, transfer CPU-intensive programs to times when there is a lower system workload, or to other host systems. You could also increase the number of CPUs or upgrade the CPU(s).
5minLoadAverage	If an average of more than two processes are waiting, this indicates that the CPU is reducing the performance of the entire system. A high value for 5minLoadAverage and a high value for CPU_Utilization can indicate that too many processes are active on this server. A high value for 5minLoadAverage and a low value for CPU_Utilization can indicate that the main memory is too small. The processes are then waiting due to excessive paging.
Paging Page_In Page_Out	Alerts for paging suggest that too many processes are being run in a host system, or that the main memory is too small for the number of running processes. Measures that you can take are to extend the main memory, to move processes to other host systems, and to delay memory-intensive program runs to times of lower system workload. Note On Microsoft Windows platforms (unlike UNIX platforms), a page-out is performed as a precaution even without space being required. An alert in this MTE therefore has not meaning; under Microsoft Windows, you should only take Page_In into account. Under UNIX, on the other hand, Page_Out is the critical value for evaluating the paging.
Commit_Charge Commit_ChargeFree Commit_Percent	If the available commit charge falls under the threshold value, you should increase the value of the entire commit charge in the operating system. Note, however, that a larger virtual memory causes more paging if there is not enough main memory.
Swap_Space Freespace Percentage_Used	If an alert is generated in this subtree, you should increase the available swap space (for guidelines about the size of the swap space, see SAP Notes 0146289 and 0146528).
OS_Collector/State	If the operating system collector is not running on a system, you should restart SAPOSCOL.