NMON_Analyser User Guide Version 3.1 – Last update 22-06-22 21:08
NMON_Analyser User Guide for V3.4
Preface
NMON_Analyser is designed to complement NMON (Nigel’s Monitor) in analysing and
reporting performance problems; it produces graphs for virtually all sections of output created
using the “spreadsheet output” mode of NMON as well as doing some additional analyses for
ESS, EMC and FAStT subsystems. It will also work with files produced by topasout and with
other tools that produce data in “NMON” format. It is written in VBA for Excel and will work
with Excel 2003 or later.
NMON was originally written by Nigel Griffiths (nag@uk.ibm.com) and is now (since AIX 5.3
TL09 and AIX 6.1 TL02) part of topas. NMON_Analyser was originally written by Stephen
Atkins with contributions from many people – including Ralf Schmidt-Dannert and Markus
Fehling, both of IBM.
Support for NMON_Analyser is provided on a best efforts basis. Please direct questions to the
User Forum (see below) rather than contact the author direct.
Links:
NMON_Analyser home page
http://www-941.haw.ibm.com/collaboration/wiki/display/Wikiptype/nmonanalyser
User Forum
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/dw_forum.jsp?forum=749&cat=56
New in V3.4
Improved support for Excel 2007 and 2010
Support for 64-bit Windows
Ability to specify time values instead of interval numbers
Wildcard support in LIST
Limit the overall number of CPU, PCPU and SCPU sheets generated
Add graphs for the PCPU and SCPU sheets
Correct handling of the DISKRXFER sheet
Fix a bug with the MERGE option
Automatically include CPU_SUMM, DISK_SUMM and SYS_SUMM in LIST
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Table of Contents
Preface.............................................................................................................................................................................1
New in V3.4................................................................................................................................................................1
Collecting data using NMON.........................................................................................................................................4
Collecting data using topas (xmwlm).............................................................................................................................5
Using NMON_Analyser.................................................................................................................................................5
Analyser options.........................................................................................................................................................6
National Language Settings........................................................................................................................................7
Batch Processing Options...........................................................................................................................................7
Formatting Options.....................................................................................................................................................7
Pivot Chart..................................................................................................................................................................8
Printing Options..........................................................................................................................................................8
Web Publishing Options.............................................................................................................................................9
Interpreting the output sections.......................................................................................................................................9
Notes on the “Weighted Average” as used in the Analyser........................................................................................9
SYS_SUMM.............................................................................................................................................................10
AAA..........................................................................................................................................................................10
BBBB.......................................................................................................................................................................11
BBBC........................................................................................................................................................................11
BBBD........................................................................................................................................................................11
BBBE........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBG........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBL........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBN........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBP........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBR........................................................................................................................................................................12
BBBV........................................................................................................................................................................12
CPUnnn.....................................................................................................................................................................12
CPU_ALL.................................................................................................................................................................12
CPU_SUMM.............................................................................................................................................................13
General notes for DISK, ESS, EMC, FASt and DG sheets......................................................................................13
EMC/PowerPath subsystems................................................................................................................................14
FAStT subsystems.................................................................................................................................................14
DGBUSY..................................................................................................................................................................14
DGREAD..................................................................................................................................................................14
DGSIZE....................................................................................................................................................................14
DGWRITE................................................................................................................................................................14
DGXFER...................................................................................................................................................................14
DISKBSIZE..............................................................................................................................................................14
DISKBUSY...............................................................................................................................................................15
DISKREAD..............................................................................................................................................................15
DISKSERV...............................................................................................................................................................15
DISKWAIT...............................................................................................................................................................15
DISKWRITE.............................................................................................................................................................15
DISKXFER...............................................................................................................................................................15
DISK_SUMM...........................................................................................................................................................15
DONATE..................................................................................................................................................................15
EMCBSIZE/FAStBSIZE..........................................................................................................................................15
EMCBUSY/FAStBUSY...........................................................................................................................................15
EMCREAD/FAStREAD...........................................................................................................................................16
EMCWRITE/FAStWRITE.......................................................................................................................................16
EMCXFER/FAStXFER............................................................................................................................................16
EMCSERV/FAStSERV............................................................................................................................................16
ERROR.....................................................................................................................................................................16
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ESSBSIZE.................................................................................................................................................................16
ESSBUSY.................................................................................................................................................................16
ESSREAD.................................................................................................................................................................16
ESSWRITE...............................................................................................................................................................16
ESSXFER..................................................................................................................................................................16
FCREAD...................................................................................................................................................................17
FCWRITE.................................................................................................................................................................17
FCXFERIN...............................................................................................................................................................17
FCXFEROUT...........................................................................................................................................................17
FILE..........................................................................................................................................................................17
FRCA........................................................................................................................................................................17
IOADAPT.................................................................................................................................................................18
IP...............................................................................................................................................................................18
JFSFILE....................................................................................................................................................................18
JFSINODE................................................................................................................................................................18
LAN..........................................................................................................................................................................18
LARGEPAGE...........................................................................................................................................................18
LPAR........................................................................................................................................................................18
MEM.........................................................................................................................................................................19
MEMUSE..................................................................................................................................................................20
MEMNEW................................................................................................................................................................21
MEMPAGES4K/64K/16MB/16GB..........................................................................................................................21
MEMREAL...............................................................................................................................................................21
MEMVIRT................................................................................................................................................................21
NET...........................................................................................................................................................................21
NETPACKET...........................................................................................................................................................21
NETSIZE..................................................................................................................................................................21
NFS sheets.................................................................................................................................................................21
PAGE........................................................................................................................................................................22
POOLS......................................................................................................................................................................22
PROC........................................................................................................................................................................23
PROCAIO.................................................................................................................................................................23
RAWCPUTOTAL, RAWLPAR...............................................................................................................................24
TCPUDP...................................................................................................................................................................24
TOP...........................................................................................................................................................................24
Interpreting the %Processor by PID chart.............................................................................................................25
UARG.......................................................................................................................................................................26
VM............................................................................................................................................................................26
WPAR sheets............................................................................................................................................................26
WLM sheets..............................................................................................................................................................26
ZZZZ.........................................................................................................................................................................26
Error Handling.............................................................................................................................................................27
Common problems....................................................................................................................................................27
Known bugs/problems (V3.4, topas_nmon).............................................................................................................27
How to report a problem...............................................................................................................................................28
Excel/VBA Resources/Links........................................................................................................................................28
Appendix: Notes on Batch Operation...........................................................................................................................29
Sample .bat files........................................................................................................................................................29
getcsv.bat...............................................................................................................................................................29
analyser.bat...........................................................................................................................................................29
putxls.bat...............................................................................................................................................................29
Control.txt.............................................................................................................................................................29
NMON Analyser Batch.xls...................................................................................................................................29
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Collecting data using NMON
Please make sure you have the latest versions of both NMON and NMON_Analyser before
starting a new engagement. If you want automatic notification of a new release of the Analyser
send a note to steve_atkins@uk.ibm.com and I’ll add you to my distribution list. Nigel maintains a
similar list for NMON.
You will need to have root privileges in order to get a complete set of data on the BBBP sheet.
In order to collect data for the DISKBUSY sheets you need to make sure that iostat data
collection is enabled:
chdev -l sys0 -a iostat=true
For spreadsheet output mode (comma separated values) use the following flags when invoking
nmon:
-f spreadsheet output format [note: default -s300 -c288]
Output file is <hostname>_YYYYMMDD_HHMM.nmon
-F <filename> same as -f but user supplied filename
-c <number> number of snapshots
-d requests disk service and wait times (DISKSERV and DISKWAIT)
-i <percent> Ignore processes using less than this amount of CPU when generating
TOP section – useful for reducing data volumes
-g <filename> file containing disk group definitions
-l <dpl> number of hdisks per sheet - defaults to 150, maximum 250. See notes
-m <dir> NMON changes to this directory before saving the file
-r <runname> goes into spreadsheet file [default hostname]
-s <seconds> interval between snap shots
-x capacity planning (15 mins for 1 day = -fdt -s900 -c96)
-t include top processes in the output
-T as –t plus saves command line arguments in UARG section
-A include data for async I/O (PROCAIO) sections
-D prevents DISK sections being produced (useful when Disk Groups are
being used because there are too many hdisks to process)
-E stops ESS sections being produced (necessary when Disk Groups are
being used because there are too many vpaths to process)
-J prevents JFS sections being produced (prevents Excel errors when you
have more than 255 filesystems)
-L includes LARGEPAGE section
-N include NFS sections
-S include WLM sections with subclasses
-W include WLM sections without subclasses
-Y include SUMMARY section (very efficient alternative to –t if PID level
data is not required)
example: nmon_aix51 -F asterix.nmon -r Test1 -s6 -c12
Notes:
1. The –f (or –F) flag must appear first.
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2. The value of the -l flag controls the number of hdisks per sheet on the DISK sheets and per
line on the BBBD sheet. There are two factors to consider when choosing this value. Excel
has a limit of 256 columns per sheet; however, both NMON and NMON_Analyser use some
columns, so the upper limit is really 250. The second factor is that Excel VBA has an upper
limit of 2048 bytes for input line length. This particularly affects users of EMC systems that
use long hdisk names (e.g. hdiskpower123). The default of 150 is safe for such systems.
Other users may set the value to 250 in order to reduce the number of output sheets.
3. Consider the value of the -s flag very carefully. The shorter the interval between snapshots,
the more variable the values for each resource will be. If you use an interval of 1 second,
don’t be surprised to see many of your disks hitting 100% busy for short periods. For normal
monitoring, 10-minute intervals (-c 600) provide a good balance.
4. The graphs produced by NMON_Analyser look best when the number of snapshots
(specified by the -c flag) is 300 or less.
5. The TOP section (produced by specifying the -t flag) can generate large amounts of output
and the size of the output can grow exponentially if a large value is specified for the -c flag.
If you want the TOP section then specify no more than 250 snapshots - ideally less.
Collecting data using topas (xmwlm)
You need AIX V5.3 TL5 Service pack 4 with APAR IY87993 or later. Note that only the
output using the –a flag can be analysed. In particular, cross-partition statistics cannot be
analysed; if you wish to get a report for the entire machine, collect data from each LPAR
separately and then use NMON_Consolidator to merge the data. Commands like the following
are required to collect the data.
topasout -a /etc/perf/daily/xmwlm.yymmdd
:
cp /etc/perf/daily/xmwlm.yymmdd_01 hostname.ddmmyy.topasout.csv
Using NMON_Analyser
FTP the input file to your PC – ideally using the ASCI or TEXT options to make sure that
lines are terminated with the CRLF characters required by Windows applications.
Open the NMON_Analyser spreadsheet and specify the options you want on the “Analyser”
and “Settings” sheets (see below). Save the spreadsheet if you want to make these options
your personal defaults.
Click on the "Analyse nmon data" button and find/select the .nmon file(s) to be processed.
You may select several files in the same directory. If you wish to process several files in
different directories you may wish to consider using the “FILELIST” option described below.
You may see the message SORT command failed for “filename” if the file has >65K
lines and the filename (or directory name) contains blanks or special characters. Either
rename the file/directory or just pre-sort the file before using the Analyser.
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