Owner's Manual

96 Monitoring and Alerting
Metrics for Performance
Performance metrics are based on the same type of counters for Windows and
Linux operating systems.
Table 9-4. Metrics for Performance
Metric
(Total Count=simple+compound)
Description
CPU
%Kernel Utilization Time The percentage of elapsed time that the process
threads spend executing code in privileged mode.
When a Windows system service is called,
the service often runs in privileged mode to
gain access to the system-private data. Such data is
protected from access by threads executing in user
mode. Calls to the system can be explicit or
implicit, such as page faults or interrupts. Unlike
earlier operating systems, Windows uses process
boundaries for subsystem protection in addition to
the traditional protection of user and privileged
modes. Windows does some work on behalf of
the application that may appear in other
subsystem processes in addition to the privileged
time in the process.
%Processor Utilization Time The percentage of elapsed time that the processor
spends to execute a non-idle thread. This value is
calculated by measuring the duration the idle
thread is active in the sample interval, and
subtracting that time from the interval duration.
(Each processor has an idle thread that consumes
cycles when no other threads are ready to run).
This counter is the primary indicator of the
processor activity.
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