There is a better tool. It was introduced in AIX 4.3.2 and it's called
topas (it's very similiar to "monitor" or "top") Simply enter "topas" at
the AIX command prompt. As to the problem, if the system is really paging,
it's most likely your bufpool is set too high. I would try lowering your
bufpool size. If that helps, then don't increase your bufpool until after
you get more memory. Topas will allow you to see hot processes, disks,
adapters and paging all at the same time, which will make it much easier to
figure what process is monopolizing your resources.

Good Luck


At 07:02 AM 1/3/02 -0500, you wrote:

I think the wide range of answers as to what this output means is a good
indication that IBM would do well to develop a more concise tool for
reviewing resource utilization.  As for my opinion I would start with
'vmtune' and then look at 'iostat'.  Good Luck

Thanks,
Jon Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: Denis L'Huillier [mailto:dlhuillier AT PERSHING DOT COM]
Sent: Wednesday, January 02, 2002 1:34 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Memory Tuning For AIX


Hello-
I am having a memory problem.
I am runnning AIX 4.3.2 on a H50.  TSM is the only application
running on the server.  When I run vmstat I get the following...

kthr     memory             page              faults        cpu
----- ----------- ------------------------ ------------ -----------
 r  b   avm   fre  re  pi  po  fr   sr  cy  in   sy  cs us sy id wa
 0  0 136233   202   0   3   2  99  210   0  52  240  66 17 30 16 37
 1  3 136234   342   0  38  11 3727 4204   0 1322 6136 4665 12 11  3 74
 2  3 136236   160   0  44  12 3728 5326   0 1324 5844 4644 10 11  2 76
 1  3 136237   295   0  17  19 4113 5725   0 1305 7174 5091 13 10  3 74
 0  3 136237   629   0  19   9 4240 7442   0 1316 7200 5082 14 13  5 68

Does this look normal to anyone?  From my limited understanding of vmstat
it looks like:
CPU utilization is maxed out
I have blocked processes (the b column)
The scan rate (sr) column is very high.
The server has 1Gig of memory.  I'm really not sure how to tell how much is
allocated to
the OS and how much is allocated to TSM.  Does anyone have any ideas or
pointers is
tuning memory for AIX?  Do I need a memory upgrade?
I started checking this because my server response is horrible.
Thanks.
Denis

Chris Gibes <gibes AT berbee DOT com>
Tivoli Certified Consultant
IBM Certified System Administrator
Berbee- Milwaukee Branch
(262) 521-5616


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