CPU Attributes

The CPU attributes refer to processor characteristics such as idle time, system CPU time, and user CPU time.

Busy CPU (Percent) The percentage of time the CPU was busy. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 100.

CPU ID The processor ID. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 999. Use this attribute to determine the processor ID. In a SMP system with more than one processor, the CPU report will show CPU ID as aggregate on the first row. This means the data row return aggregated CPU statistics. For example, the following value is valid: Aggregate=-1.

Idle CPU (Percent) Percentage of idle CPU time during the sampling period. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine how efficiently the entire system or each processor of the SMP system is operating. The Idle CPU value must be low if the system load is heavy, and high if the system load is light. If the system load is heavy and the Idle CPU value is high, an I/O problem might exist. If the Idle CPU value is small, or zero, and the User percentage is larger (greater than 30%), the system might be compute-bound or in a loop.

I/O Wait (Percent) The percentage of time the CPU was in a wait input/output state. The following values are valid: integers in the range of 0 to 100.

Steal CPU (Percent) The percentage of time spent in involuntary wait by the virtual CPU while the hypervisor is servicing another virtual processor (applies only to Linux on PPC P5 or greater). Note: -1 indicates Not Available and -2 indicates Not Collected.

System CPU (Percent) Percentage of system CPU time during the sampling period. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine the percentage of system or per processor CPU time devoted to executing Linux system kernel code. System CPU time includes time spent executing system calls and performing administrative functions.

System Name The managed system name. The form should be hostname:agent_code.

Examples include spark:LZ or deux.raleigh.ibm.com:LZ.

In workspace queries, this attribute should be set equal to the value $NODE$ in order to populate the workspace with data. This attribute is generally not included in situations, unless there is a need to customize the situation for a specific managed system.

Time Stamp The date and time the agent collects information as set on the monitored system. The timestamp for SCAN and STR functions is displayed in the CYYMMDDHHMMSSmmm format (as in 1020315064501000 for 03/15/02 06:45:01) where:

C = Century (0 for 20th, 1 for 21st)

Y = Year

M = Month

D = Day

H = Hour

M = Minute

S = Second

m = millisecond

User CPU (Percent) Percentage of user CPU time during the sampling period. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine the percentage of system or per processor CPU time devoted to user processes. User CPU time includes time spent executing both user program and library functions. It does not include CPU time spent executing system calls. The ratio between user and system CPU time varies, depending on the kinds of programs executing. If user CPU is extremely high and adversely affecting system performance, you might want to determine which user programs are preventing the CPU from functioning at its normal speed.

User Nice CPU (Percent) Percentage of user nice CPU time during the sampling period. The following values are valid: integers in the range 0 to 100.

User to System CPU (Percent) Of the total CPU time, the percentage consumed by users. The following values are valid: -10000 to + 10000.