Users Guide

monitors this CUPS index for the overall system utilization and also monitors the instantaneous value of
CPU, Memory, and I/O utilization index.
Utilization information of system resources is obtained by querying the data from a set of dedicated
counters provided by the CPU and chipset. These counters are called Resource Monitoring Counters or
RMCs. These counters are aggregated by the node manager to measure the cumulative utilization of
each of these system resources that is read from the iDRAC using existing inter-communication
mechanisms to provide these vital data through out-of-band management interfaces.
Since Intel sensor representation of performance parameters and index values are for complete physical
system, performance data representation on the interfaces is for the complete physical system, even if
the system is virtualized and hosting multiple virtual hosts.
To display the performance parameters, the supported sensors must be present in the server.
The four system utilization parameters are:
• CPU Utilization — There are individual Resource Monitoring counters (RMCs) for each CPU core
which is aggregated to provide cumulative utilization of all the cores in the system. This utilization is
based on time spent in active state and time spent in inactive state. Each sample of RMC is taken every
six seconds.
• Memory Utilization — There are individual counters (RMCs) to measure memory traffic occurring at
each memory channel or memory controller instance. These counters are aggregated to measure the
cumulative memory traffic across all the memory channels on the system. This is a measure of
memory bandwidth consumption and not amount of memory utilization. iDRAC aggregates it for one
minute of period, so it may or may not match the memory utilization shown by other OS tools such as
top in Linux. Memory bandwidth utilization shown by iDRAC is indication of whether workload is
memory intensive or not.
• I/O Utilization — There are individual Resource Monitoring Counters (RMCs), one per root port in the
PCI Express Root Complex to measure PCI Express traffic emanating from or directed to that root
port and the lower segment. These counters are then aggregated to measure PCI express traffic for all
PCI Express segments emanating from the package. This is measure of IO bandwidth utilization for
the system.
• System Level CUPS Index — The CUPS index is calculated by aggregating CPU, Memory, and I/O
index considering a pre-defined load factor of each system resource. The load factor depends on the
nature of the workload run on the system. Thus at any given time, CUPS Index represents the
measurement of the compute headroom available on the server. Hence, if the system has a large
CUPS Index, then there is limited headroom to place additional workload on that system. As the
resource consumption decreases, the system’s CUPS Index decreases. A low CUPS Index indicates
that there is a large amount of compute headroom and the server is a main target for receiving new
workloads or having the workload migrated, and the server being placed into a lower power state in
order to reduce power consumption. Such workload monitoring can then be applied throughout the
data center to provide a high-level and holistic view of the data center’s workload, providing a
dynamic data center solution.
NOTE: The CPU, memory, and I/O utilization indexes are aggregated over one minute. Therefore, if
there are any instantaneous spikes in these indexes, they may be suppressed. They are indication of
workload patterns not the amount of resource utilization.
The IPMI, SEL, and SNMP traps are generated if the thresholds of the utilization indexes are reached and
the sensor events are enabled. The sensor event flags are disabled by default. It can be enabled using the
standard IPMI interface.
The required privileges are:
• Login privilege is required to monitor performance data.
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