SYSTEM ACTIVITY REPORT suggests performance degradation

[Steve Jukoff]

SYSTEM ACTIVITY REPORT suggests performance degradation

'sar -u' reports:
%idle drops to 0% and %wio increases to near 100%.
Does anyone know what causes this condition and what can be done
to stop it?

System is "normal" for days before entering this state
(and after a re-boot).
Here is a day where it goes from "normal" to 0%idle.
It occurred around 14:40.

The only significant activity is a number of similar "Oracle"
processes.  All other 'sar' activity looks normal.

Look at 14:40.  Can you shed some light on this?


00:00:01    %usr    %sys    %sys    %wio   %idle
                   local  remote
01:00:01       2       4       0       3      90
02:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
03:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
04:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
05:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
06:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
07:00:00       0       2       0       0      98
08:00:01       0       2       0       1      96
08:20:01       2       2       0       5      91
08:40:02       4       2       0       9      84
09:00:02       7       3       0       9      81
09:20:03       5       4       0      16      74
09:40:01       6       4       0      18      71
10:00:03       3       3       0       9      85
10:20:03       4       3       0      17      75
10:40:14       6       4       0      23      66
11:00:05       8       5       0      30      57
11:20:05       7       5       0      26      61
11:40:03       8       6       0      23      63
12:00:08      12       7       0      29      52
12:20:02       6       4       0      24      65
12:40:07       5       4       0      21      70
13:00:06       8       6       0      24      62
13:20:08      12       8       0      19      60
13:40:06      11       8       0      31      49
14:00:05      12       7       0      27      55
14:20:03      11       5       0      26      58
14:40:02       8       5       0      54      33
15:00:02       5       4       0      90       0
15:20:02       9       6       0      85       0
15:40:02      12      10       0      78       0
16:00:05      13       8       0      79       0
16:20:06       9       6       0      85       0
16:40:02      18      17       0      65       0
17:00:02       8       7       0      85       0
17:20:01       4       4       0      92       0
17:40:01      12      28       0      60       0
18:00:01       3       5       0      91       0
19:00:01       1       2       0      96       0
20:00:01       4       4       0      92       0
21:00:02       4       4       0      92       0
22:00:00       2       2       0      96       0
23:00:01       5       5       0      90       0

Average        4       4       0      39      53


root at lazarus:/usr/adm/sa 37% vmstat -s

   31640 free swap space
   95344 demand zero and demand fill pages
   13504 pages on swap
   69307 pages in cache
   66688 pages on file
  240094 protection fault
   26651 pages are freed
      69 success in swapping out a process
       0 fail in swapping in a process
      59 success in swapping in a process
     206 swapping out a region
     177 swapping in a region
 5333408 cpu context switches
 7633624 system calls
0.2u 1.6s 0:06 29%



root at lazarus:/usr/adm/sa 38% vmstat 10 5

PROCS     PAGING                                          SYSTEM  CPU
 r  b  w  frs dmd sw cch fil pft frp pos pif pis rso rsi  sy  cs  us su id

 1 116  0 3164   0   0   0   0   1   0   0   0   0   0   0  119 115  44 18 38
 1 116  0 3164   6   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   13  13  28 71  1
 1 116  0 3164   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   77  70  83 16  1
 1 116  0 3164   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   21  16  17 82  1
 2 115  0 3164   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0   0    6   5   5 94  1
0.2u 2.0s 0:52 4%


+----------------------------------------------------------+
| Steven Jukoff               DDN:   jukoff at net.com        |
| Phone: 415-780-5819         uucp:  pyramid!unet!jukoff   |
+----------------------------------------------------------+