[wplug] Understanding Load

Gary P gpitman at gmail.com
Wed Dec 7 13:37:15 EST 2011


My understanding of load is that your machine can process a load of 1/per core. If you have an 8 core machine and a load of 8 then your machine is getting as much work as it can handle. 
Since load is not consistant you should target a consistant load of .7 per core so that spikes can be recovered from. 
However I/O wait can drive your load through the roof without working your server at all. 

- Gary

On Dec 7, 2011, at 12:59 PM, Kevin Squire <gentgeen at wikiak.org> wrote:

> I have been diving into the performance of one of our servers lately.
> Trying to figure out if the hit in performance is due to one of the
> changes made at network level, server level, or is it just that the
> server is getting used more.
> 
> On thing I am trying to understand is "Load" ... the systems (1min) load
> during the day can go as high as 80 ... but tends to bounce around 3-10
> 
> We have a Intel® Xeon® Processor 3050 
> http://ark.intel.com/products/27204/Intel-Xeon-Processor-3050-%282M-Cache-2_13-GHz-1066-MHz-FSB%29
> 
> It is Dual Core -- and from what I read here
>  http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2009/07/31/understanding-load-averages
> 
> A load of < 2 is OK since it is a dual core.  What I am wondering:
> 
> 1) Is that right, < 2 is OK for this chip?
> 2) Does the number of threads matter any? 
> 3) If 2 is right... then where else can I look to see WHY my load tends
> to spend sooo much time in the double digits?
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> http://www.wikiak.org
> 
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