Ryan - No I meant the "uptime" command. On most Unix systems uptime lists the run queue length over several time samples. Dennis Williams DBA Lifetouch, Inc. _____ From: ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ryan_gaffuri@xxxxxxxxxxx] Sent: Friday, October 22, 2004 5:46 PM To: DENNIS WILLIAMS; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Cc: DENNIS WILLIAMS Subject: RE: question about cpu usage i'm assuming you mean vmstat? what do you look for? > Ryan > Perhaps you can tolerate a mini-O.S. lesson. > A process can be in several states -- running (only one process/CPU), > waiting (for I/O, user response, etc.), or ready-to-run (or run queue). The > O.S. lets each process have the CPU (running) for a short interval of time, > or until it must wait for something like I/O. Once a process has its I/O > satisfied, it is put on the ready-to-run queue until the O.S. decides to put > it back on the CPU. > Basically there is a queue of processes waiting for the CPU. If the > system is nearly idle, that queue will be very short. When the process is > back from the I/O, it is quickly put back on the CPU. If the system is > heavily loaded, then the queue will get very long. If you are interested and > on Unix, check out the uptime command, which will show you th e length of the > run queue on your server. > Many people find the run queue a better indicator of how heavily loaded > an OLTP server is. > > Dennis Williams -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l