SunONE DB File Cache Test

While the SunONE DB Cache test reveals the inefficient use of the database cache as a whole, using the SunONE DB File Cache test, you can accurately point to the specific database(s) that is under-utilizing the cache. The latter monitors requests to each database that has been explicitly configured for monitoring, and reports the percentage of these requests that were serviced by the database cache.

Target of the test : A Sun Java System Directory server

Agent deploying the test : An internal agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results per database to be monitored.

Configurable parameters for the test

Parameter	Description
Test period	How often should the test be executed
Host	The host for which the test is to be configured.
Port	Refers to the port at which specified host listens to.
DistinguishedName	Represents the server's Distinguished name. This value is to be specified when the server requires explicit authentication of requests. By default, this attribute is set to "none", implying that authentication is not required.
Password	Specify the password to be used for authenticating the request. The password is to be specified whenever the DistinguishedName is not "none".
Confirm Password	Confirm the password (if specified) by retyping it here.
DatabaseName	Specify a comma-separated list of databases to be monitored.

Measurements made by the test

Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Cache hit ratio	Indicates the percentage of times a search request to this database resulted in a cache hit.	Percent	The closer this value is to 100%, the better. Whenever a directory operation attempts to find a portion of the database that is not resident in the database cache, the directory server has to perform a disk access to obtain the appropriate database page. Thus, as this ratio drops towards zero, the number of disk accesses increases and directory server performance drops. Compare the value of this measure across databases to identify the database that is not utilizing the cache well.
Pages read in	Indicates the rate of pages brought to the cache from this database during the last measurement period.	Pages/Sec
Pages written out	The rate of pages for this database written from cache to disk file during the last measurement period.	Pages/Sec	A database page is written out to disk whenever a read-write page has been modified and then subsequently evicted from the cache. Pages are evicted from the database cache when the cache is full and a directory operation requires a database page that is not currently stored in cache.