Diagnostic Tools

Utilities on your operating system that monitor system activities.

Use these utilities to get statistics on the number of running processes, including and the number of page-outs and swaps. Use this information to find out if the system is paging excessively, then make any necessary adjustments. You may want to put your swap files on special fast disks.

OS	Utility	Description
UNIX	top, topas	Provides an ongoing look at processor activity in real time. top is available on Solaris, Linux, and HP-UX platforms. topas is available on AIX.
	ps	Reports process status.
	vmstat	Displays information about system processes, memory, paging, block IQ, traps, and CPU activity.
	iostat -x	Displays disk subsystem information.
	sar	Writes selected OS activity results to standard output.
Windows	Task Manager, Resource Monitor	Provide detailed information about computer performance and running applications, processes, CPU usage, and other system services.

Note: To access System Monitor, select the object Logical Disk, the instance of the disk containing the file PAGEFILE.SYS, and the counter Disk Transfers/Sec.

Put the Windows page files on different disks than your database dbspace devices. You can also monitor the Object Memory and the counter Pages/Sec. However, this value is the sum of all memory faults which includes both soft and hard faults.