AHM response as # of tests increase....

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mattb
Posts: 8
Joined: Fri May 28, 2004 11:42 am

AHM response as # of tests increase....

Post by mattb »

Host Monitor ver: 4.42
OS: Windows 2000 Server sp4

I am having trouble with Host Monitor as the number of tests increase and the schedule times are very close together.

We are running about 900 tests (I know, that isn't that many) and 255 of them are set to run every 20 seconds. This makes the interface extremely slow and at times totally unresponsive (I have learned how to cope with it). The 255 tests are doing ODBC tests that are returning a single value (we have to break them up like this for what we need).

The problem is that when these 255 tests are enabled a good portion of my other tests (and even a lot of the tests in the 255 group) never get tested.

For example I have a Performance counter set to run every 10 minutes. But while these 20 second tests are enabled, the performance counter never gets tested (and it is enabled). It has been two days since it has been updated. When I disabled the 255 tests, this test started working right away.

Right now I have host monitor set to start no more than 16 tests a second. I would like not to have to increase this since the interface is so slow/unresponsive to begin with when I have all 900 tests enabled. Please let me know of a fix.

Thanks

(Server has plenty of resources - 2 GB of memory avaliable at lowest levels, CPUs (4x) stay at about 10% utilization)
KS-Soft
Posts: 12821
Joined: Wed Apr 03, 2002 6:00 pm
Location: USA
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Post by KS-Soft »

1) about slow ODBC tests.

There is "unofficial" update available at www.ks-soft.net/download/hm448.zip
"Enable connection pooling" option is located on Miscellaneous page in the Options dialog (ODBC test & logging section). This option should increase ODBC performance.

BTW: Also this new version supports new SNMP Trap test method. If you want to try this test method, I would recommend to copy your existent Advanced Host Monitor into another directory (or another computer), unzip new modules, and setup SNMP Trap tests for testing purpose only!

2)
The problem is that when these 255 tests are enabled a good portion of my other tests (and even a lot of the tests in the 255 group) never get tested.
It is configuration problem. You should increase intervals for some tests (e.g. perform ODBC tests every 60 sec instead of 20 sec) or you should increase value of "Don't start more than [N] tests per second" parameter.

BTW: New HostMonitor has new function "Estimate Load" dialog. Use menu "View"->"Estimate load" to get information about tests/performance

Regards
Alex
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Marcus
Posts: 367
Joined: Mon Nov 18, 2002 6:00 pm

Post by Marcus »

New HostMonitor has new function "Estimate Load" dialog. Use menu "View"->"Estimate load" to get information about tests/performance
The problem is, it does not say anything about the real load on your server.

For example: We have 5000+ active test defined. Which will conclude the estimate load tool to say: 9 tests a seconds should be sufficient. This would be the case only if HostMonitor does not want to start all tests or only needs to start 9 every second and no master tests are defined.

The reality is different. One server can have more than 9 tests, which will all run with the same schedule (as much as possible). Or many tests can become active at the same schedule. This will result in periods where HostMonitor needs more than 9 tests a second.

Currently we have HostMonitor configured to run 64 tests a second. And we see that all tests will be performed at the correct time. Only when starting the application, you do not want to use the GUI, since it will hang. HostMonitor still works fine, just the interface is not available for use the first few minutes (or very slow). 98% of the tests will run every 10 minutes, a few have longer periods an a few have shorter periods.

To resolve this, we start HostMonitor as an application with the /stop parameter (we control HostMonitor in a TS session).

When starting HostMonitor as a service, you can see processor consumption rise to about 50%. So we have some room left for additional tests :wink:

The best way to test how many tests to perform each second, is to start with a high value and start HostMonitor. After a few minutes, count the number of threads used by HostMonitor (can be seen with the task manager). In our case it is about 50 (with an upper limit of about 200). Setting it to 64 tests a seconds just makes HostMonitor to become more relaxed at an earlier stage. :P
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