Incorrect usage for memory

jtwhitlock

Hello all,

 

First off i am very new to solarwinds/thwack so i apologize for my lack of knowledge on it. I am running Orion 10.1.3 and I am having an issue with one of our 2008 R2 servers showing incorrect memory usage in the web console. Even after polling the node solarwinds is showing usually around 20% more then what is currently showing when i remote in to the server and open up task manager. Their is no memory allocation on this server either. Has anyone had this issue before and is their anyone who can help?

 

Thanks

erica.gill

Hi Jtwhitlock,

This is a very interesting observation, what is likely happening is that processes are using a combination of physical and virtual memory. Where people most often see this is on servers with applications which make heavy use of the system and their own application pagefiles, where memory usage and memory availability trigger warnings and alerts.

When we calculate memory usage we ask a device how much physical RAM it has. We then ask how much RAM it is being used.  On a Windows server this involves adding up all the memory in use by all processes.  These processes use physical and virtual memory and in some cases their own application virtual memory, leading to the total in use sometimes being greater than the amount of physical RAM.  That can lead to measurements that are greater than 100%.

 

The way to test and confirm that Orion NPM 10.1.3 (which you are using) is reporting correctly is to run an SNMP Walk, against the server and then total up the process memory usage and compare that against Orion.

 

That said, of course there is also the possibility that something is wrong and if you find the sum in the SNMP Walk is off please open a support case and we can look into it some more.

All the best,

Erica