2.3.2 Objectives of performance monitoring on virtualized systems
As discussed above, the benefits of a virtualized system are greatest when system resources are used in the proper amounts. Virtualized systems cannot be used effectively if system resources are overconsumed, or at the other extreme, hardly used at all.
In situations like these, the status of resource consumption can be monitored to determine whether the current system is set up effectively.
At a basic level, PFM - Agent for Platform is designed to collect information about a single physical operating system. However, it can be used creatively to monitor performance information that depends on virtualized systems.
The main objectives of using PFM - Agent for Platform to monitor virtualized system performance are as follows:
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Analyzing performance data trends to better understand impact on load allocation and the affected system resources.
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Analyzing performance data to find the causes of bottlenecks.
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Monitoring whether the operating system is running properly in the virtualized system.
In virtualized systems, specific bottlenecks might adversely affect performance of the entire virtualized system. The following may cause such bottlenecks:
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Insufficient memory on a logical partition
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Load allocation between virtualized systems
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Monopolization of a specific resource by a program
The following explains methods for using PFM - Agent for Platform to monitor the performance of virtualized systems. Note that the thresholds shown here for performance monitoring are just reference values. Use the appropriate values based on the system configuration and usage.