Arista CPU Utilization Test

One of the probable reasons for the poor performance of the target Arista switch is excessive CPU utilization. Administrators should hence continuously track how well the switch utilizes CPU resources, so that abnormal usage patterns can be proactively detected and corrected to ensure peak performance of the switch. This test helps the administrators to monitor the CPU resource contention in the Arista switch and also helps to sort out the solutions for what caused this contention – resource-hungry user processes, CPU-intensive system processes or low-priority (Nice) jobs?

Target of the test : Arista Switch

Agent deploying the test : An external agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the target Arista Switch that is to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter Description

Test period

How often should the test be executed

Host

The IP address of the Arista Switch that is being monitored.

SSH Port

This test uses SSH commands to pull metrics from the target switch. To run SSH commands, this test first needs to establish an SSH connection with the target switch. To enable the test to establish this connection, specify the port through which SSH connection should be established.

SSH Username, SSH Password, and Confirm Password

By default, this test uses SSH commands to pull out the required metrics. To use these commands, the test first needs to connect to the target storage server via SSH. For running the SSH commands, this test requires the credentials of a user who is authorized to access the target switch via SSH. Specify the login credentials of such a user in the SSH Username and SSH Password text boxes and confirm the Password by retyping it in the Confirm Password text box.

Timeout

Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement Description Measurement Unit Interpretation

User process

Indicates the percentage of CPU time spent on user processes.

Percent

Compare the values of these metrics to know which processes are hogging CPU resources.

 

System process

Indicates the percentage of CPU time spent on system processes.

Percent

Nice

Indicates the percentage of CPU time spent on low priority processes.

Percent

Idle

Indicates the percentage of time the CPU was idle.

Percent

An idle time of less than 20% is indicative of excessive CPU usage.