CPU Attributes

The CPU attributes refer to processor characteristics such as idle time, system CPU time, and user CPU time.


Busy CPU The percentage of time the CPU was busy. Valid entry is an integer.  Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 2147483647.

CPU ID The processor ID. Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 999. Use this attribute to determine the processor ID. In a SMP machine with more than one processor, the CPU report will show CPU ID as "aggregate" on the first row. This means the data row return aggregated CPU statistics.

Idle CPU Percent of idle CPU time during the sampling period. Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine how efficiently the entire system or each processor of the SMP system is operating. The Idle CPU value should be low if the system load is heavy, and high if the system load is light. If the system load is heavy and the Idle CPU value is high, an I/O problem may exist. If the Idle CPU value is small, or zero, and the User percent is larger (greater than 30%), the system may be compute-bound or in a loop.

System CPU Percent of system CPU time during the sampling period. Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine the percent of system or per processor CPU time devoted to executing Linux system kernel code. System CPU time includes time spent executing system calls and performing administrative functions.

System Name Name of the host system. Valid entry is a simple text string, alphanumeric with a maximum length of 64 characters.

Timestamp The date and time the agent collects information as set on the monitored system. The timestamp format for SCAN and STR functions is CYYMMDDHHMMSSmmm (as in 1020315064501000 for 03/15/02 06:45:01) where:

C = Century (0 for 20th, 1 for 21st)

Y = Year

M = Month

D = Day

H = Hour

M = Minute

S = Second

m = millisecond

User CPU Percent of user CPU time during the sampling period. Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 100. Use this attribute to determine the percent of system or per processor CPU time devoted to user processes. User CPU time includes time spent executing both user program and library functions. It does not include CPU time spent executing system calls. The ratio between user and system CPU time varies, depending on the kinds of programs executing. If user CPU is extremely high and adversely affecting system performance, you may want to determine which user programs are preventing the CPU from functioning at its normal speed.

User Nice CPU Percent of user nice CPU time during the sampling period. Valid entry is an integer in the range 0 to 100.

User Sys Pct Of the total CPU time, the percentage consumed by users. Valid entry is an integer in the range of 0 to 100.

Wait IO CPU The percentage of time the CPU was in a wait input/output state. Valid entry is an integer in the range of 0 to 100.