Ntperf probe - Processor Queue Length metric

Products

• DX Unified Infrastructure Management (Nimsoft / UIM)

Issue/Introduction

This article answers some questions referred to Processor Queue Length metric that can be retrieved by the ntperf probe.

Environment

Any supported ntperf probe version.

Resolution

Q: We would like to understand how ntperf captures the Processor Queue Length data from the windows server and trigger alerts in UIM ?

A: The Performance Collector (ntperf) probe can monitor the windows performance objects and their respective counters and instances on a Windows system. The probe is configured to send alarms on unexpected values and generate quality of service (QoS) messages.

So basically, the ntperf probe gets the Windows Performance Monitor data via the Windows API's (exactly like CDM probe).

Related to "Processor Queue Length" counter, It is located under Object: System -> Processor Queue Length.

cdm and ntperf handles this differently. cdm divides the processor queue length by no.of cores, while ntperf probe doesn't. Example if processor queue length is 20 and no. of cores is 2, the with CDM value will be 10 and with ntperf value will be 20.

Q: Can I get documentation on this parameter?

A: This parameter is not documented in ntperf probe documentation. However, as mentioned above, ntperf works in the same way as CDM probe to get this info, so for this parameter, you can refer to CDM probe documentation:

CPU, Disk, Memory Performance