Yes, the number can be over 100%.  That's what tells you the system is 
overloaded. 

To qoute Dr. Neil Gunther, "On average, the UNIX load average metrics are 
certainly not your average average."

The problem is that load average isn't a measure of "how much the CPU is being 
used"   (I mean, it's not like you can have a CPU at 50%. What would that even 
mean? that only half of the CPU is running?  The CPU is either on or off, 
running at full speed)  A poor, horribly incomplete quick definition,  CPU Utli 
measures is the ratio of active processes to live CPUs.  An 800% means that 
there where, on average, eight active processes waiting for CPU time.  

there's a lot more to it than that, but it's a good way to look at it.  read 
the wikipeida article on load averages and  Gunter's  
(http://www.teamquest.com/resources/gunther/display/5/index.htm) stuff.

------------------------
Luis V. Garcia




-------------------- m2f --------------------

Read this topic online here:
http://community.zenoss.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=6485#6485

-------------------- m2f --------------------



_______________________________________________
zenoss-users mailing list
[email protected]
http://lists.zenoss.org/mailman/listinfo/zenoss-users

Reply via email to