System Administration Guide

About Monitoring Performance

While your computer is running, counters in the operating system are incremented to keep track of various system activities. System activities that are tracked are:

Central processing unit (CPU) utilization
Buffer usage
Disk and tape input/output (I/O) activity
Terminal device activity
System call activity
Context switching
File access
Queue activity
Kernel tables
Interprocess communication
Paging
Free memory and swap space
Kernel Memory Allocation (KMA)

Monitoring Tools

The Solaris 2.x system software provides several tools to help you keep track of how your system is performing. These include:

Table 62-8 Performance Monitoring Tools


The ...	Enable(s) You To ...	For More Information, See ...
`sar` and `sadc` utilities	Collect and report on system activity data	Chapter 64, Monitoring Performance (Tasks)
`ps` command	Display information about active processes	Chapter 63, Managing Processes (Tasks)
Performance meter	Display graphical representation of the status of systems on the network	Chapter 64, Monitoring Performance (Tasks)
`vmstat` and `iostat` commands	Summarize system activity data, such as virtual memory statistics, disk usage, and CPU activity	Chapter 64, Monitoring Performance (Tasks)
`swap` command	Display information about available swap space on your system	Chapter 30, Configuring Additional Swap Space (Tasks)
`netstat` and `nfsstat` commands	Display information about network performance	Chapter 65, Monitoring Network Performance (Tasks)
Solstice System Monitor (symon)	Collect system activity data on Ultra^TM Enterprise^TM3000, 4000, 5000, and 6000 systems	Solstice System Monitor User's Guide