Conclusion - Compaq 108164-003 - ProLiant - 800 Technical Manual

I/O Performance Tuning of Compaq Servers
Fibre Channel Utilities
casa_disks – used by the casa_menu utility to build a list of FC adapters to pass to the
casadiag utility.
casa_menu – allows you to probe FC Array Controllers for information, including:
controller type, PCI slot, and board revision number.
casadiag – the back end of the casa_menu utility. Casadiag is run with the name of all the
FC Array Controllers as defined by casa_disks.
casacfg – used to configure the loops on a FC adapter, the arrays on a FC loop, and
remove the casa driver from the system.
casautil – allows you to perform basic administrative functions like manually testing the
LEDs on an array or taking an array on- or offline.
Perhaps the most comprehensive tool for analyzing and recording performance data on SCO
operating systems is sar, or systems activity report. sar allows for both real-time and logged data
gathering of nearly every system in your server. sar can gather data which may highlight both
kernel and non-kernel, such as disk I/O or CPU utilization, bottlenecks. Consult the man pages
for sar for a complete listing and explanation of sar's functionality.
sar's greatest weakness is the arcane method of reporting the data. rtpm, real-time performance
monitor, can display the same data as sar in real-time in a dense format which is usually easier to
follow. In addition, rtpm allows individual parameters to be displayed in a real-time graph.
However, rtpm does not allow the same data logging capability as sar. Instead, only the screen is
used for output of rtpm's tables of data.
If sar's output files are too obtuse, you may consider third-party utilities such as SarCheck.
SarCheck analyzes your sar data and generates a report, in a clear, easy to read format, indicating
what performance problems are most evident in your server and offers possible solutions for
common performance issues.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this paper has provided you with a firm understanding of hardware performance
tuning and analysis. This information, combined with the introduction to the tools available to
identify performance issues, should establish the basis for evaluating your server performance.
From there, you can investigate what tools and parameters are available to make the most
appropriate use of your hardware. Careful testing and investigation combined with accurate
diagnosis and solutions can prolong the life and improve performance of any server.
Since it would be nearly impossible for this paper to proceed to the next step of diagnosing
application-dependent problems and recommending specific solutions, tuning the server is
something for you to explore on your own. There are many books, websites, and magazines that
provide volumes of information that may be specific enough to actually provide clear tuning
instructions for your environment. As part of the ASE training courses, Compaq offers in-depth
classes on Integration and Tuning for each of the supported operating systems. Information of
these classes can be obtained via the Compaq website at http://www.compaq.com/resellers.
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