On Thu, May 15, 2008 at 5:33 AM, Thomas Kern <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> As much as I like the idea of having accounting data for each > process/job in a linux server, I don't think the VM accounting data is > the place to put it. For a long time I have felt that process accounting > should go into the Monitor data stream so like SMF there is all the data > in ONE place. Being a different beastie (like MVS or VSE), linux data is > probably best kept in linux for a while with consolidation/coordination > with ALL other sources of process accounting data being a future goal. To set up something on CMS to collecting the account records is very easy. Either set up 2 users to manage that, or a simple pipeline to do it. The hardest part is to ensure your disk does not fill up. My experience is that when you have accounting data and charge-back based on that, customers will often challenge the reported usage and related charges. When they normally use 1 hour of CPU per day and suddenly one day 10 hours, they often claim it must be bad accounting since they don't remember doing more work. I have been at an installation where on average 40% of the CPU capacity was used by looping servers and other operation problems. When you have detailed monitor data available, you can still tell when those 10 hours were consumed. And when you have process data available as well, as you suggest, it is even possible to point at the process consuming those CPU hours. This does require correct CPU usage inside Linux, and sufficient high capture ratio to be relevant. Unfortunately the new Linux instrumentation runs short on both aspects. Rob PS Needless to say that ESALPS keeps performance history for such analysis and collects CPU usage with typically > 99.5% capture ratio, so good enough for accounting purposes as well. -- Rob van der Heij Velocity Software GmbH http://velocitysoftware.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For LINUX-390 subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: INFO LINUX-390 or visit http://www.marist.edu/htbin/wlvindex?LINUX-390
