pc resource monitoring and performance advisor www.hp.
Overview HP Toptools is a modular web-based device management tool that provides dynamic information about HP hardware on your LAN. Among the many features of HP Toptools (version 4.5 onward) is the resource monitoring facility, accessible using the Toptools Management Console. This feature permits you to monitor the hardware resources of remote PCs on the network.
Resource Monitoring Example 1 This shows the monitoring of hard disk drives on a single remote Vectra PC. The PC has two logical hard disk drives, C and D. For each, disk usage (over a time period) and the current amount of free disk space is shown. You can disable or enable both monitoring and event alerts on each disk drive. To change threshold values, simply drag the red or yellow arrow up or down, as desired.
If the remote PC has two processors, each is monitored separately. Value This measurement can be useful for detecting processor malfunctions, identifying processor undercapacity, or processor overcapacity for reallocating resources. Average Value Time Sample Values These sample values are used to provide an average value over a much longer window of time, for example, over a period of an hour. It is this average value which is used to trigger alerts.
Swap Activity This measurement shows the average number of pages per second that are read from or written to the Windows swap file. This measurement is taken over a fixed period of time, and reflects the average rate during that time. The swap activity measurement is particularly useful. A high value means that the remote PC does not have enough physical memory and it compensates by continually swapping data between system memory and the swap file. This slows down the PC considerably.
Disk Usage Two measurements are provided: disk activity and disk space. Disk Activity This shows the percentage of time that the PC’s hard disk drives are busy. A hard disk is busy if it is performing an input or output operation. This measurement is taken over a fixed period of time, and reflects each disk drive’s average activity during that time. This measurement is only used in Toptools Value Pack and is only available for PCs running Windows NT or Windows 2000.
LAN I/O Error Rate • Before the installation of a new software application, you can install it in several trial PCs and monitor the PCs’ page swapping rates to determine if more physical memory is needed to successfully run that application. • If a PC user complains about a slow PC or disruptive system errors, you can monitor resources (such as memory and network usage) on that remote PC to help track down and resolve the problem.
System Performance Advisor The Toptools Value Pack includes a system performance module. This module is a powerful tool for centrally monitoring and managing system performance of groups of PCs, servers, and the network. It enables system administrators, help desk personnel, and VAR service providers to proactively identify, diagnose, and alleviate system performance bottlenecks on PC and PC server systems.
