About load indices

Load indices measure the availability of dynamic resources on hosts. Dynamic resources are properties of a host that change as the load on that host changes, such as available memory and CPU utilization.

Load indices are not configurable; they simply reflect the current state of resources on your hosts given the current load they are managing. For example, as more workload units are assigned to and being run on host A, host A’s CPU utilization load index increases. A load index may increase or decrease as the host’s resources are put under more load. For example on host A, the total available memory decreases as the load increases.

How often are they measured?

Load indices are measured automatically at fixed time intervals. Each index is individually monitored and has its own update interval (from one of the shortest intervals at 15 seconds for status, to the longest interval at 120 seconds for available temporary space).

Why do I use them?

Viewing load indices for one host provides an excellent snapshot of how that host is performing at a specific moment. For troubleshooting purposes, you may want to track the load indices of one host over time (for example, an hour or a day).

Viewing load indices for all your hosts provides an overall snapshot of how your cluster is performing under its current load at a specific moment.

Load indices

Index

Measures

Units

Direction

Averaged over

Update Interval

status

host status

string

15 seconds

r15s

run queue length

processes

increasing

15 seconds

15 seconds

r1m

run queue length

processes

increasing

1 minute

15 seconds

r15m

run queue length

processes

increasing

15 minutes

15 seconds

ut

CPU utilization

percent

increasing

1 minute

15 seconds

pg

paging activity

pages in + pages out per second

increasing

1 minute

15 seconds

ls

logins

users

increasing

N/A

30 seconds

it

idle time

minutes

decreasing

N/A

30 seconds

swp

available swap space

MB

decreasing

N/A

15 seconds

mem

available memory

MB

decreasing

N/A

15 seconds

tmp

available space in temporary file system

MB

decreasing

N/A

120 seconds

io

disk I/O

KB per second

increasing

1 minute

15 seconds