Advanced Tools for AIX Performance Analysis

Develop the skills to use kernel traces, trace based utilities, and svmon to measure and analyze CPU, memory, and I/O performance issues on IBM systems running AIX. Reinforce each lecture during extensive hands-on lab exercises and get practical experience applicable to their performance management requirements.

Objective

• Use the trace facility to collect data and create a trace report
• Use the kernel trace facilities to analyze CPU performance issues
• Describe causes and impacts of high context switching rates
• Identify what causes a thread to be blocked and later woken up
• Explain the relationship between the output of svmon -G, svmon -P, and svmon -S
• Calculate the amount of memory in use on the system
• Explain the relationship between svmon, vmstat, and ipcs output
• Categorize the memory in use on the system by segment type
• Identify which processes are using the most memory or paging space
• Describe the characteristics of asynchronous I/O, synchronous I/O, direct I/O, and concurrent I/O
• Identify if the expected type of I/O is being executed
• Tune asynchronous I/O

 

1. Day 1
1. Welcome
2. Unit 1: AIX trace facilities
3. Exercise 1: AIX trace facilities
4. Unit 2: Advanced memory topics - I
5. Exercise 1: AIX trace facilities (Part 3)
6. Exercise 2: Advanced memory topics - I
2. Day 2
1. Unit 3: Advanced memory topics - II
2. Exercise 3: Advanced memory tropics - II
3. Unit 4: Advanced CPU topics - I
4. Exercise 4: Advanced CPU topics - I
5. (Optional) Exercise 4: Advanced CPU topics - I (Part 2)
3. Day 3
1. Unit 5: Advanced CPU topics - II
2. Exercise 5: Advanced CPU topics - II
3. Unit 6: Advanced I/O topics - I
4. Exercise 6: Advanced I/O topics - I (Part 1)
5. (Optional) Exercise 5: Advanced CPU topics - II
6. (Parts 2 and 3)
4. Day 4
1. Exercise 6: Advanced I/O topics - I (Part 2)
2. Unit 7: Advanced I/O topics - II
3. Exercise 7: Advanced I/O topics - II
4. (Optional) Exercise 7: Advanced I/O topics - II (Part 3)

The audience for this training includes AIX technical support personnel, performance benchmark personnel, and AIX system administrators.

You are expected to have extensive AIX skills. These skills can be obtained by attending the following courses: AIX Power Systems for AIX IV: Performance Management (AN510) or have the equivalent extensive AIX skills