NMON_Analyser User Guide Version 3.1 – Last update 05-03-19 11:09
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NMON_Analyser User Guide for V6.0
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.
For Windows users: It is written using Excel 2016 and shoud work with Excel 2007 or later. It
may work also on Excel 2003 with the required Microsoft updates to support .xlsx files
https://support.microsoft.com/kb/924074?wa=wsignin1.0
For Mac users: It is tested using Excel for Mac 2016. It should work with earlier versions such
as Excel 2011 but has not been recently tested.
Note #1: Recent Microsoft Excel for Mac updates (released in Jan 2019) have broken nmon
Analyzer (prior versions) and users will receive overflow errors. This version is intended to
work around these issues. As a result, some graphs may appear at the top of the sheet instead of
the bottom.
Note #2: If you wish to collect very large nmon files (10+ MB) and attempt to use the NMON
Analyser against them, then you should install 64-bit Microsoft Excel 2013 or 2016. Installing
64-bit Excel is critical or you will likely run out of memory and it will fail. You also need to
have 8 GB RAM and preferably more.
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. Currently nmon Analyzer is maintained by Ron McCargar
(mccargar@us.ibm.com.)
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
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/wikis/home?lang=en#!/wiki/Power%20Systems/page/n
mon_analyser
User Forum
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/community/forums/html/forum?id=11111111-
0000-0000-0000-000000000749&ps=25
New in V6.0
NMON_Analyser User Guide Version 3.0 – Last update 05-03-19 11:09
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• Work around added for overflow error on Mac OS when trying to chart graphs on several
sheet like DISK_SUMM. Appears to be a bug with Excel on Mac OS only.
• On Mac OS the graphs were drawn too wide, made a change so by default they are drawn to
consume a more reasonable amount of space similar to how it is done on Windows.
• Fixed graph titles/descriptions for DISKAVGRIO, DISKAVGWIO: they were wrong per AIX
documentation here:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/ssw_aix_72/com.ibm.aix.prftools/io_stat.ht
m
New in V5.5
• Fixed an issue where the DISK_SUMM metrics were wrong if more than 150 disks existed in
the data.
New in V5.4
• When running on MAC, showing progress during the run is much faster now. The
SHOWMACPROGRESS option now defaults to YES. Note: Using SHOWMACPROGRESS =
YES will slow execution somewhat (maybe 30-50% slower) but the benefit is you will clearly know
that the process is not "hung".
• On MACs, fixed batch processing of multiple files related to use of : instead / for subdirectories.
• On Macs, fixed issues relating to merging of multiple files because of usage of : instead of /
New in V5.2.2
• When using the merge function its possible the filename generated may incorrectly contain a :
colon causing the analyzer to fail.
New in V5.2.1
• Tested on Excel 2016: Please note you may experience the following issue “texttocolumns
method of range class failed” a possible work around:
“I installed Excel 2016 on my mac. I open excel , enable macros run the latest analyzer. It fails with
“texttocolumns method of range class failed”. Then i see in the background that the Sheet2 has no data
in column A, i.e. data didn't get copied into Excel from the .nmon file. I put in a 1 into first cell of column
A (could add any data really to avoid the error) and hit the button to continue. Then it fails like it should
saying "no valid nmon data".
I shut down Excel and I came back in again later rerun the analyzer and I did not get the problem it
seemed like a 1 time thing, it ran through it successfully. Tested it a few more times, it doesn’t happen
anymore. Uncertain what caused this to fail the 1
st
time but FYI“
New in V5.2
• Add Merge support when running on a Mac.
New in V5.12
• Fixed problems if running on Mac Excel 2016
New in V5.1
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• If Merge = Yes then the 1st file's data would appear twice incorrectly.
• The Avg and Max CPU% on the SYS_SUMM column was being calculated incorrectly.
• The default save format used on a Mac may not have been set correctly in some cases.
• If importing multiple .nmon files that contain multiple "AAA,x86," records popup errors would be
shown to the user.
New in V5.0.2
• Added support to run nmon Analyzer on a Mac with Excel 2011 or higher. Please note the
following limitations: Pivot charts don't work, Merge option doesn't work.
• Fixed a problem when trying to import very large .nmon files it may fail.
• On the AAA sheet renamed the "elapsed" value given to "Analysis time" (the elapsed time it took Excel to
analyze the nmon file)
• Enabling PIVOT charts would crash the analyzer on Excel 2010 and higher and has been fixed.
(Analyser - PIVOT = YES)
• On the Analyser's Settings - DELIM value the user can now specify any value desired.
• In ProcessFile() added a check for EOF before doing the import to possibly avoid an error.
• Graphs that show Avg/Wavg/Max will now show Avg/Wavg on the Y1 axis and Min/Max as lines
on the Y2 axis. Also if the Analyzer Output option SyncAxis is YES then the Y1 and Y2
• Several graphs were not sorted previously based on the Analyser's Settings - SORTDEFAULT
value but are now.
• Added On Error Resume Next in a few spots in order to be better able to analyze huge data sets
without failing prematurely.
• Added new options SHOWMACPROGRESS and SHOWLINUXCPUUTIL
New in V4.7
• Added a check for Power 8 and SMT mode 8. In previous versions no check exists which
defaults the number of CPUs shown to 2 on the CPU_SUMM sheet.
New in V4.6
• If an INTERVAL range was specified the CPU_SUMM sheet would contain no data.
• If the SORTDEFAULT setting was set to YES then sheets like NETPACKET would incorrectly
display a SortKey value on the graph.
• If the LPAR sheet didn't exist, then SYS_SUMM graph would not display CPU% as expected.
• On the SYS_SUMM sheet if the LPAR sheet exists, the CPU% column will be now what it was
back with analyzer version 3.4a or Avg CPU% "=M4/LPAR!C2*100." and Max CPU% =
"=M4/LPAR!C2*100.".
• If the nmon data contained ERROR tags, the resulting ERROR sheet would incorrectly list
thousands of columns at the end containing 'N/A'
New in V4.3
• Added a new setting called SORTDEFAULT. This setting indicates if the 1st graph on 'default'
sheets (ones not handled else where by the Analyzer) are sorted. Note: If Yes, this will also
reorder the columns.
• Added support for the CPU_ALL, CPUnnn Steal% column that is being added to nmon for Linux.
New in V4.2
• On the LPAR sheet on the 1st graph the Unfolded VPs value was incorrectly removed.
• Support for checking for EMC/PowerPath disks was broken. The EMC graphs are
available again.
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• The EMC check problem caused the disk graphs showing Avg, Wavg, Max to not be
sorted with the highest Avg + Wavg first.
• Many additional sheets now have their Avg, Wavg, Max graphs sorted with the highest
Avg + Wavg first (FC*, etc)
New in V4.0
• The elapsed time value produced on AAA was incorrect previously. It did not include
the time to open the file(s) and sort the data.
• Added a new option on the Analyser sheet called BIGDATA. Use this if you have large
lines (up to 32K) or > 1048576 rows.
• The analyzer would fail on Excel 2007 if > 1048576 rows were encountered. Use
BIGDATA=YES.
• The maximum allowed rows per .nmon file is now unlimited (based on available
Excel/PC memory)
• The SORTINP setting has been removed. Data is now always sorted.
• On the SYS_SUMM sheet the CPU% values were wrong and have been changed to the
sum of users% + Sys% for each line.
• On the SYS_SUMM sheet added the following additional fields from the LPAR tab (it it
exists): Virtual CPUs, Other LPARs, Pool CPUs, Entitled, Weight
• On the LPAR tab the 1st and 3rd graphs showed incorrect values.
• Updated nmon analyzer to check for either hdiskpower, emcpower or just power when
determining if EMC data is present.
• Analysis supports any number of columns up to the Excel maximum of 16684. On large
data sets (> 10 MB) you most likely will require 64-bit Windows however and a
minimum of 8 GB of RAM.
• NPIV header was incorrectly shown at the bottom of the sheet previously.
• NPIV and SEALICTRAFFIC sheets will no longer show any graphs (due to potential
huge size.)
New in V3.5
• Added SCATTER option to include/exclude TOP CPU% by PID graph to avoid crash
with Excel 2013
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
Table of Contents........................................................................................................................................................... 5
Collecting data using NMON ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Collecting data using topas (xmwlm) ............................................................................................................................ 8
Using NMON_Analyser ................................................................................................................................................ 8
Analyser options ........................................................................................................................................................ 9
National Language Settings ..................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Batch Processing Options ........................................................................................................................................ 10
Formatting Options .................................................................................................................................................. 10
Pivot Chart ............................................................................................................................................................... 11
Printing Options ....................................................................................................................................................... 11
Web Publishing Options .......................................................................................................................................... 12
Interpreting the output sections ................................................................................................................................... 12
Notes on the “Weighted Average” as used in the Analyser ..................................................................................... 12
SYS_SUMM ............................................................................................................................................................ 13
AAA ........................................................................................................................................................................ 13
BBBB ...................................................................................................................................................................... 14
BBBC ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBD ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBE ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBG ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBL ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBN ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBP ....................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBR ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
BBBV ...................................................................................................................................................................... 15
CPUnnn ................................................................................................................................................................... 15
CPU_ALL ................................................................................................................................................................ 16
CPU_SUMM ........................................................................................................................................................... 16
General notes for DISK, ESS, EMC, FASt and DG sheets ..................................................................................... 16
EMC/PowerPath subsystems ............................................................................................................................... 17
FAStT subsystems ............................................................................................................................................... 17
DGBUSY ................................................................................................................................................................. 17
DGREAD ................................................................................................................................................................ 17
DGSIZE ................................................................................................................................................................... 17
DGWRITE ............................................................................................................................................................... 18
DGXFER ................................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKBSIZE ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKBUSY ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKREAD ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKSERV .............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKWAIT ............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISKWRITE ........................................................................................................................................................... 18
DISKXFER .............................................................................................................................................................. 18
DISK_SUMM .......................................................................................................................................................... 18
DONATE ................................................................................................................................................................. 19
EMCBSIZE/FAStBSIZE ......................................................................................................................................... 19
EMCBUSY/FAStBUSY .......................................................................................................................................... 19
EMCREAD/FAStREAD ......................................................................................................................................... 19
EMCWRITE/FAStWRITE ...................................................................................................................................... 19
EMCXFER/FAStXFER ........................................................................................................................................... 19
EMCSERV/FAStSERV ........................................................................................................................................... 19