HP Caliper 5.3 User Guide (5900-1558, February 2011)

5
First piece of advice, set off by a line of
dashes (--------).
1
Application object being analyzed, which
version (when it was last modified), the
processor type and speed, and operating
system version.
6
Second piece of advice, set off by a line of
dashes (--------).
2
Performance databases being analyzed.
7
Cutoff settings, which specify how much of the
advice to print.
3
Rule files that were used.
4
Advice section, giving performance tuning
advice.
This was run on an HP-UX 11i V2 September 2004 OE system. Reports run on other systems look
similar, except that the specific advice given is unique to the application and the system.
How to Read an Advisor Report
Each Advisor run analyzes one or more application objects. (Currently, only executable objects
can be analyzed.) A separate report is output for each object analyzed. The reports are in
alphabetic name order.
See “HP Caliper Advisor Report, with Annotations” (p. 81) for an example report.
The description section of the report precedes the advice section. The description section is important
because the given set of databases might contain several different executables, different versions
of the same executable, and performance data from the same or different types of systems. The
Advisor reports specifically which version, of which executable, and measured on which system
that the advice applies to. In general, the Advisor selects the most recent version of each executable
it finds in the database(s) and only uses consistent performance data for each analyzed object.
There are three elements to a piece of advice:
• Index
The index value represents the approximate importance of a particular piece of advice. The
values typically range from 0.0 to 100.0. The index value does not indicate the improvement
that could be achieved if the improvement suggestion is followed. It is a rough means of
ordering the relevance of various unrelated performance issues. You can use the Advisor
--advice-cutoff command-line option to specify what the minimum index value should
be.
• Class
All advice is classified as to what area of application performance it applies to. Every piece
of advice belongs to an advice class, which is one of the following:
◦ General: advice that doesn’t fit into a single category or can’t easily be classified
◦ CPU: items pertaining to non-memory CPU cycles
◦ Memory: for memory-related performance issues
◦ IO: for any I/O advice
◦ System: advice relating to system calls, system resources, process management, and so
forth
You can use the Advisor --advice-classes command-line option to specify which classes
of advice should be included in the report.
• Analysis
This is where the performance advice is printed.
An example is shown below.
The numbers (which are bold in the PDF version of this guide) are annotations to explain the
report—they are not part of the output you receive. See the list at the end of the report for the
explanations.
82 Using the HP Caliper Advisor