HP Insight Management Agents - Manual (Page 112)

Processors
• CPU—Name of the processor for which statistical information is gathered.
• Interrupts/sec—Average number of hardware interrupts the processor is receiving and
servicing in each second. It does not include Deferred Procedure Calls or DPCs, which are
counted separately. This value is an indirect indicator of the activity of devices that generate
interrupts, such as the system clock, the mouse, disk drivers, data communication lines,
network interface cards, and other peripheral devices. These devices normally interrupt the
processor when they have completed a task or require attention. Normal thread execution
is suspended during interrupts. Most system clocks interrupt the processor every 10 ms,
creating a background of interrupt activity. This counter displays the difference between
the values observed in the last two samples, divided by the duration of the sample interval.
• % User CPU Time—Percentage of non-idle processor time spent in user mode. (User mode
is a restricted processing mode designed for applications, environment subsystems, and
integral subsystems. The alternative, privileged mode, is designed for OS components and
allows direct access to hardware and all memory. The OS switches application threads to
privileged mode to access operating system services.) This counter displays the average
busy time as a percentage of the sample time.
• % Privileged CPU Time—Percentage of non-idle processor time spent in privileged mode.
(Privileged mode is a processing mode designed for operating system components and
hardware-manipulating drivers. It allows direct access to hardware and all memory. The
alternative, user mode, is a restricted processing mode designed for applications, environment
subsystems, and integral subsystems. The operating system switches application threads to
privileged mode to access operating system services.) % Privileged CPU Time includes time
servicing interrupts and DPCs. A high rate of privileged time might be attributable to many
interrupts generated by a failing device. This counter displays the average busy time as a
percentage of the sample time.
• % DPC Time—Percentage of time that the processor spent receiving and servicing deferred
procedure calls (DPCs) during the sample interval. DPCs are interrupts that run at a lower
priority than standard interrupts. % DPC Time is a component of % Privileged Time because
DPCs are executed in privileged mode. They are counted separately and are not a component
of the interrupt counters. This counter displays the average busy time as a percentage of
the sample time.
• % Interrupt Time—Percentage of time the processor spent receiving and servicing hardware
interrupts during the sample interval. This value is an indirect indicator of the activity of
devices that generate interrupts, such as the system clock, the mouse, disk drivers, data
communication lines, network interface cards and other peripheral devices. These devices
normally interrupt the processor when they have completed a task or require attention.
Normal thread execution is suspended during interrupts. Most system clocks interrupt the
processor every 10 milliseconds, creating a background of interrupt activity. This counter
displays the average busy time as a percentage of the sample time.
• % CPU Time (Thresholds Supported)—Percentage of time that the processor is executing a
non-idle thread. Designed as a primary indicator of processor activity, this counter is
calculated by measuring the time that the processor spends executing the thread of the idle
process in each sample interval, and subtracting that value from 100%. Each processor has
an idle thread that consumes cycles when no other threads are ready to run. It can be viewed
as the percentage of the sample interval spent doing useful work. This counter displays the
average percentage of busy time observed during the sample interval. It is calculated by
monitoring the time, the service was inactive, and then subtracting that value from 100%.
112 Agent information