Solaris System Performance Management

Course Overview

The Solaris System Performance Management course provides students with an introduction to performance tuning principles and monitoring tools for the Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS). This course presents the principles of performance tuning and usage of performance measurement tools, such as sar, vmstat, iostat, netstat, and nfsstat. Central processing unit (CPU), memory, and input/output (I/O) bottlenecks are described and solutions are recommended. Determining virtual file system performance is also covered. The Solaris System Performance Management course includes lab exercises that enable students to analyze Solaris OS-related performance issues.

The course format isolates each major system component that affects to system performance data. Each subsystem is presented through a case study that shows how performance bottlenecks can be isolated, confirmed through analysis, and resolved through making adjustments to the system configuration.

The Central Processing Units (CPUs), memory, and input/output (I/O) systems are reviewed to clarify standard techniques for monitoring each one. Monitoring and tuning virtual memory operations, logical volume systems, file systems, and network efficiency are discussed as well, using the case study introduction described above.

The course concludes with a more general case study to examine the full cycle of identifying and resolving performance impediments. The Solaris System Performance Management course includes lab exercises to reinforce skills development.

Audience

Senior system administrators and others concerned with monitoring effective performance of Solaris systems can benefit from this course. Students who want to learn the performance tools provided with Solaris 10 can also benefit from this course.

Skills Gained

Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Describe performance management fundamentals
• Use the Solaris OS and third-party tools to analyze performance
• View and set kernel-based tuning parameters
• Monitor and report on process and thread activity
• Modify CPU scheduling and virtual memory operations
• Describe system caches and system buses
• Tune I/O, UNIX(R) File System (UFS), and network subsystems

Prerequisites

To succeed fully in this course, students should be able to:

• Install and configure the Solaris OS
• Employ advanced systems administration skills in a networked Solaris OS server environment
• Manage pseudo and distributed file systems
• Create and manage logical volumes
• Describe fundamentals of TCP operations

Course Outline

Module 1 - Introducing Performance Management

• Describe the principles of performance tuning
• Describe the performance tuning process
• Understand the terms used to describe performance aspects

Module 2 - Using the Solaris OS Monitoring Tools

• Describe and use monitoring tools provided with the Solaris OS
• Monitor system performance using SymbEL (SE) Toolkit programs
• Describe online resources for third-party utilities
• Enable system accounting

Module 3 - Viewing and Setting Tuning Parameters

• View tuning parameters
• Set tuning parameters

Module 4 - Monitoring Processes and Threads

• Describe a process
• Describe threads
• Compare the performance of single-threaded and multithreaded processes
• Monitor processes

Module 5 - Managing CPU Scheduling

• Control and Monitor CPUs
• Monitor CPUs by using SE Toolkit programs
• Describe scheduling
• Display and change scheduler parameters
• Change the scheduling behavior of a process
• Describe Solaris Resource Manager projects and the Fair Share Scheduler (FSS)

Module 6 - Monitoring System Caches

• Describe a cache
• Describe the characteristics of a cache
• Identify cache problems associated with multiple CPUs
• Identify cache problems associated with cache design

Module 7 - Performing Memory Tuning

• Monitor memory utilization
• Describe virtual memory
• Cache disk-based files
• Identify paging statistics
• Describe swapping
• Identify the memory requirements of an application
• Identify memory shortage in a system

Module 8 - Managing Systems Buses

• Describe a bus
• Describe the prtdiag utility
• Diagnose the problems associated with buses

Module 9 - Performing I/O Tuning

• Describe the characteristics of a SCSI bus
• Describe the time components of disk I/O
• Describe driver and bus features that enhance performance
• View disk and bus device properties
• Describe I/O performance planning
• Describe VERITAS Volume Manager and Solaris Volume Manager
• Tune the I/O subsystem
• Monitor disks by using the Vdbench and SWAT utilities

Module 10 - Tuning UFS

• Monitor file system performance statistics
• Describe OS services that affect UFS performance
• Describe application behavior that affects UFS performance
• Tune UFS parameters to improve system efficiency
• Tune UFS parameters to match application workloads
• Describe alternative write strategies to UFS buffering
• Describe alternative file systems to UFS

Module 11 - Monitoring Network Performance

• Describe TCP
• Describe the performance of network hardware
• Monitor network performance with Solaris utilities
• Monitor networks by using SE Toolkit programs

Module 12 - Maintaining System Performance

• Describe steps for maintaining system performance
• Set up system accounting
• Describe common utilities for measuring system performance and identifying problem applications
• Describe specific types of bottlenecks and methods for reducing them
• Describe a basic method for maintaining system performance