STEP 4. Monitoring CPUs

Having identified any memory, disk, and network bottlenecks, we are finally ready to look at CPU utilization.

One of the reasons for leaving CPU until last is that there is more to monitor with CPUs. If you start here, you risk getting bogged down in detail and losing sight of the big picture. But the main reason for monitoring CPU last is that it isn’t necessarily bad if your CPUs are heavily utilized.

Why would server CPUs be less than heavily utilized? CPUs on a well-tuned server (one with no memory, disk, or network bottlenecks) will either be idle because there is no work to do or will be busy much of the time.

If there is work to do, you should expect the CPUs to be doing it. If there is work to do and the CPUs ...

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