Memory Monitoring

We are running many Notes servers within our environment where the memory utilization is thru the roof. Many are at 180% utilization. I am wondering if there is something different about how solarwinds Monitors memory versus Microsoft monitor. We will monitor directly from the server itself everything seems fine. Would someone be able to explain the differences in memory monitoring on the OS as opposed to what Solarwinds pulls from SNMP.

Find more posts tagged with

custom_view

memory_utilization

top_xx_list

Accepted answers

All comments

DonYonce

The Orion server monitors the amount of total commited memory including swap space. So, a 180% utilization may not be bad. It simply means that the Windows OS is using 180% more memory than the physical amount installed on the box.

You have to decide if this is a problem for your particular application or not.

For example, a server running a set credit card processing applications may run just fine with 2GB or physical memory and 2GB of commited swap, but a SQL Server may run terrible with 2GB of physical memory and 2GB of swap.

mjhamilton

Hello Don et al

I have posted this problem before and also raised a ticket with support.... however noone seems to be interested in addressing this issue..

If you take a straight Win2k or 2k3 box and monitor it in Orion you can see memory usage perfectly.. however if you install Lotus Notes v6 or greater the monitoring goes nut with regards to memory usage... i can assue you that my Notes servers have 4G RAM each and are only using less than 2.5 and limited swap according to other tools and NT.... but Orion reports 250% plus utilisation

I gave up trying to find a finx when Support basically told me it was a Notes issue and not in their remit to find a fix...........

So as far as I can tell if you are running Lotus Notes you cannot monitor memory usage with Orion.. it just doesn't work and there is no plan to fix that I know about...

Martin J. Hamilton... lost in a sea of snmp...

DonYonce

Martin,
Can you send a MIB Dump from this Notes server to Development@SolarWinds.Net ?
In particular I'd like to see the HOST-RESOURCES-MIB:host tree.

rmnp0829

Ahhh, this makes sense. Great posts and explanations. Thank you.

jasnicholas

I have this exact same issue with Notes servers and with Unix (AIX / Linux) servers. Is there something that can be configured in Orion to check actuall memory usage not commited memory?

mjhamilton

Hey there Don... I sent an email as requested to the email address you provided and thus far no response....

Any news??

Martin J. Hamilton... lost in a sea of snmp...

NotJohn

I had the same problem, with or without Domino on the server
Instead I created my own resource in the Solarwinds Virtual Directory

Under NetPerfMon\Resources\1-2-Top10Lists Find the
21-TopXXMemoryUtil.Resource and make a copy ie
22-TopXXPhysicalMemoryUtil.Resource

Make the following changes
CHANGE
Set SQLResource = NetPerfMon.NewSQLResource
SQLResource.SQL="Select Top " & MaxRecords & " NodeID,Caption,Nodes.GroupStatus, PercentMemoryUsed From Nodes Where PercentMemoryUsed>0 Order By PercentMemoryUsed Desc"
SQLResource.Filter=Resource.GetProperty("Filter")
SQLResource.Execute
If Not SQLResource.EOF Then DoReport
TO
Set SQLResource = NetPerfMon.NewSQLResource
SQLResource.SQL="Select Top " & MaxRecords & "Volumes.NodeID, Nodes.Caption, Nodes.GroupStatus, Volumes.VolumePercentUsed FROM Volumes INNER JOIN Nodes ON Volumes.NodeID = Nodes.NodeID WHERE (Volumes.VolumePercentUsed > 0) AND (Volumes.Caption = 'Physical Memory') ORDER BY Volumes.VolumePercentUsed DESC"
SQLResource.Filter=Resource.GetProperty("Filter")
SQLResource.Execute
If Not SQLResource.EOF Then DoReport

AND
CHANGE
<td class="Property" vAlign="center" width="20"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("GroupStatus as SmallIcon")%> </td>
<td class="Property"><a <%=SQLResource.GetProperty("NodeParamString")%> href="")%>"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("Caption")%></a>">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../View.asp </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("PercentMemoryUsed")%></a> </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("PercentMemoryUsed as PercentMemoryUsedBar")%></a> </td>
TO
<td class="Property" vAlign="center" width="20"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("GroupStatus as SmallIcon")%> </td>
<td class="Property"><a <%=SQLResource.GetProperty("NodeParamString")%> href="")%>"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("Caption")%></a>">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../View.asp </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("VolumePercentUsed")%></a> </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("VolumePercentUsed as PercentMemoryUsedBar")%></a> </td>

Now you will see the percent of physical memory used in Descending list.

Just add the resource to a view...

Good luck

rstier

Hi NotJohn,
That report will be much more useful to us, thanks! I gave what you suggested a shot and apparently it doesn't like something on the line:

SQLResource.SQL="Select Top " & MaxRecords & "Volumes.NodeID, Nodes.Caption,

Here is the error I got:
SQL Open Error: Line 1: Incorrect syntax near 'Volumes'.

Any ideas?
Thanks,
Ron

NotJohn

You need to set the MaxRecords value in the resource..

Try clicking the 'Edit Resource' button and setting it to a value ie 10 to show the top 10

jasnicholas

NotJohn,

Following this same thought, can you add or modify the memory dial on specific nodes to look at the physical memory rather then the allocated?

JMP

Sorry I may be a little thick here but were do you click to get the 'edit resource'. I have gotten as far as the last post by rstier but cannot find where to set the MaxRecords value. Thank you for posting solution NotJohn btw.

Addendum: I see now where to edit other resources, but there is no edit button for the newly created resource in the view.

NotJohn

Hey,

Strange...

Are you logged in as Administrator or with Admin rights?

There should be a 'Edit Resource button on every resource in the view when you have rights to do so.

Have you changed the name of the resource in the file?

Here is the entire contents of my resource file

You can see I've changed both


Resource.Title

------------------------------------------




<%
Dim MaxRecords
Dim Changed
Dim Ret

MaxRecords = Resource.GetProperty("MaxRecords")

if len(MaxRecords) = 0 then MaxRecords = 10

if len(Resource.Title) = 0 then
Resource.Title = "Top XX Nodes by Percent Physical Memory Used"
Resource.Sync
End If

Title = Replace(Resource.Title, "XX", Cstr(MaxRecords), 1, -1, 1)

SubTitle = Resource.SubTitle
EditButton="/NetPerfMon/Resources/1-2-Top10Lists/TopXXNodes.Edit.asp?ResourceID=" & Resource.ResourceID & "&ViewID=" & ViewID & "&NetObject=" & NetObject
HelpPage="TopXMemoryUtilization"
DoResourceHeader

Set SQLResource = NetPerfMon.NewSQLResource
SQLResource.SQL="Select Top " & MaxRecords & "Volumes.NodeID, Nodes.Caption, Nodes.GroupStatus, Volumes.VolumePercentUsed FROM Volumes INNER JOIN Nodes ON Volumes.NodeID = Nodes.NodeID WHERE (Volumes.VolumePercentUsed > 0) AND (Volumes.Caption = 'Physical Memory') ORDER BY Volumes.VolumePercentUsed DESC"
SQLResource.Filter=Resource.GetProperty("Filter")
SQLResource.Execute
If Not SQLResource.EOF Then DoReport
%>

<% Sub DoReport %>
<table border="0" cellPadding="2" cellSpacing="0" width="100%">
<tr>
<td class="ReportHeader" colspan=2>NODE</td>
<td colspan="2" class="ReportHeader">MEMORY USED</td>
</tr>
<% Do While Not SQLResource.EOF %>
<tr>
<td class="Property" vAlign="center" width="20"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("GroupStatus as SmallIcon")%> </td>
<td class="Property"><a <%=SQLResource.GetProperty("NodeParamString")%> href="")%>"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("Caption")%></a>">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../View.asp </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("VolumePercentUsed")%></a> </td>
<td class="Property"><a href="")%>&Period=Today"">thwack.solarwinds.com/.../CustomChart.asp target="_blank"><%=SQLResource.GetProperty("VolumePercentUsed as PercentMemoryUsedBar")%></a> </td>
</tr>
<%
SQLResource.MoveNext
Loop
%>
</table>
<% End Sub %>

<br>

Without it I guess there would be an entry in the SQL SB

rstier

Thanks NotJohn! That helped me.

KimWest

The Top 10 is only displaying systems that have windows 2003 operating systems?? I can change it to top 40 and there is no change.?? Any idea of why this is happening?

Kim West

JMP

That seemed to do the trick! Thank you for your post. It does look like it is only Windows 2003 servers though.

bashley

Thank you, Not John. This worked perfectly. I would only add that you must also modify any Resource.Title value to something different. You must do this in order to distinguish the new resource from the original one when you prepare to add it to your view. Thanks again!

FormerMember

This solution seems to be a bit out dated. Is there currently any other way to create a top XX list of the physical memory utilization which i can add to a view?

FormerMember

Tony,

Let's start fresh. You're posting on a 4-year old thread, and the product is very much changed since then. What are you trying to do and what's the problem you're seeing?

FormerMember

hence the outdated comment

My issue is basically the same as in the original post. The "Top 10 Nodes by Percent Memory Used" shows (I think) the amount of virtual memory used as a percentage of the total physical memory. What I'd like to see in addition is the amount of physical memory used as a percentage of the total physical memory.