Memory Usage Test
This test reports statistics related to the usage of the physical memory of the system.
Target of the test : Any host system
Agent deploying the test : An internal agent
Outputs of the test : One set of results for every server being monitored
|
Measurement | Description | Measurement Unit | Interpretation |
---|---|---|---|
Total physical memory: |
Indicates the total physical memory of the system. |
MB |
|
Used physical memory: |
Indicates the used physical memory of the system. |
MB |
|
Free physical memory: |
Memory that does not contain any valuable data, and that will be used first when processes, drivers or Operating System need more memory. This does not include standby memory. |
MB |
This measure typically indicates the amount of memory available for use by applications running on the target host. On Unix operating systems (AIX and Linux), the operating system tends to use parts of the available memory for caching files, objects, etc. When applications require additional memory, this is released from the operating system cache. Hence, to understand the true free memory that is available to applications, the eG agent reports the sum of the free physical memory and the operating system cache memory size as the value of the Free physical memory measure while monitoring AIX and Linux operating systems. |
Physical memory utilized: |
Indicates the percent usage of physical memory. |
Percent |
Ideally, the value of this measure should be low. While sporadic spikes in memory usage could be caused by one/more rogue processes on the system, a consistent increase in this value could be a cause for some serious concern, as it indicates a gradual, but steady erosion of valuable memory resources. If this unhealthy trend is not repaired soon, it could severely hamper system performance, causing anything from a slowdown to a complete system meltdown. You can use the detailed diagnosis of this measure to figure out which processes on the host are consuming memory excessively. |
Cached memory |
This measure is an aggregate of Standby memory and Modified memory. |
MB |
|
Note:
While monitoring Linux/AIX operating systems, you may observe discrepancies between the value of the Physical memory utilized measure and the memory usage percentages reported per process by the detailed diagnosis of the same measure. This is because, while the Physical memory utilized measure takes into account the memory in the OS cache of the Linux/AIX operating system, the memory usage percent that the detailed diagnosis reports per process does not consider the OS cache memory.