Introduction to Extended Accounting

The extended accounting subsystem labels usage records with the project for which the work was done. You can also use extended accounting, in conjunction with the Internet Protocol Quality of Service (IPQoS) flow accounting module described in Chapter 36, Using Flow Accounting and Statistics Gathering (Tasks), in System Administration Guide: IP Services, to capture network flow information on a system.

Before you can apply resource management mechanisms, you must first be able to characterize the resource consumption demands that various workloads place on a system. The extended accounting facility in the Solaris Operating System provides a flexible way to record system and network resource consumption on a task or process basis, or on the basis of selectors provided by the IPQoS flowacct module. For more information, see ipqos(7IPP).

Unlike online monitoring tools, which enable you to measure system usage in real time, extended accounting enables you to examine historical usage. You can then make assessments of capacity requirements for future workloads.

With extended accounting data available, you can develop or purchase software for resource chargeback, workload monitoring, or capacity planning.