Sun Cluster Overview for Solaris OS

System Resource Usage

System resources concern aspects of CPU usage, memory usage, swap usage, and disk and network throughput.

Sun Cluster enables you to monitor how much of a specific system resource is being used by an object type such as a node, disk, network interface, Sun Cluster resource groups, or Solaris zone. Monitor system resource usage can be part of your resource management policy. Sun Cluster also enables you to control the CPU assigned to a resource group and to control the size of the processor set a resource group runs in.

System Resource Monitoring

By monitoring system resource usage through Sun Cluster, you can collect data that reflects how a service using specific system resources is performing and you can discover resource bottlenecks or overload and so preempt problems and more efficiently manage workloads. Data about system resource usage can help you determine what hardware resources are under utilized and what applications are using a lot of resources. Based on this data you can assign applications to nodes that have the necessary resources and choose which node to failover to. This consolidation can help you optimize the way you use your hardware and software resources.

If you consider a certain data value to be critical for a system resource, you can set a threshold for this value. When setting a threshold, you also choose how critical this threshold is by assigning it a severity level. If the threshold is crossed, Sun Cluster changes the severity level of the threshold to the severity level you choose. For more information about configuring data collection and threshold, see Chapter 9, Configuring Control of CPU Usage, in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

CPU Control

Each application and service running on a cluster has specific CPU needs. Table 2–2 lists the CPU control activities available on different versions of the Solaris Operating System.

Table 2–2 CPU Control


Solaris Version	Zone	Control
Solaris 9 Operating System	N/A	Assign CPU shares
Solaris 10 Operating System	Global	Assign CPU shares
Solaris 10 Operating System	Non-global	Assign CPU shares Assign number of CPU Create dedicated processor sets

Note –

The Fair Share Scheduler must be the default scheduler on the cluster if you want to apply CPU shares.

Controlling the CPU assigned to a resource group in a dedicated processor set in a non-global zone offers you the strictest level of control of CPU because if you reserve CPU for a resource group, this CPU is not available to other resource groups. For information about configuring CPU control, see Chapter 9, Configuring Control of CPU Usage, in Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS.

Visualization of System Resource Usage

You can visualize system resource data and the CPU attribution in two ways, by using the command line or through the Sun Cluster Manager graphic user interface. The output from the command is a tabular representation of the monitoring data you request. Through the Sun Cluster Manager, you can visualize data in graphical form. The system resources that you choose to monitor determine the data you can visualize.