Symptoms and causes of performance problems
When the performance of an IBM Storage Protect environment is less than expected, there can be one or more causes. Identifying the bottleneck in your environment can explain the performance degradation.
The following symptoms can indicate poor IBM
Storage Protect performance:
- Processes or client backups take more time to run than normal
- Slow response times occur for commands that are issued
- Slow response times occur, and the system or process might seem hung
- Unexpected changes occur in response times or resource usage
- Throughput on the system is not as expected
- Processor usage is higher than normal for a certain process
- Network problems occur that are related to load, firewall, or routers
Performance problems can occur when changes are made in the environment.
For example, changes to any of the following items can affect performance:
- Hardware configuration: Adding, removing, or changing configurations such as how disks are connected
- Operating system: Installing or updating a file set, installing fix packs, and changing parameters
- Applications: Installing new versions and fixes, configuring or changing data placement, or installing or upgrading device drivers or firmware
- Network: Any changes to the network, packet loss, or intermittent connectivity
- Disk units that are aging, or are damaged
- Options that are used to tune the operating system or an application
- Scheduling of processes or backups during times of high usage
- Unexpected increase in usage of a shared resource like the network or disks
You can collect data on the IBM Storage Protect server, client, or both at the same time to help diagnose where the problem is occurring in the environment and what the problem is.