High non-DPDK CPU stats for Edge node after upgrade to NSX version 4.2.2.1

Products

• VMware NSX
• VMware Aria Operations (formerly vRealize Operations) 8.x

Issue/Introduction

• When checking the CPU usage In VMware Aria operations for Edge node "non-DPDK" CPU has increased in VMware Aria operations. 
  
  Note: The preceding log excerpts are only examples. Date, time, and environmental variables may vary depending on your environment.
  
  
• There is no alarm for Edge nodes CPU usage being high in NSX. 

Environment

VMware NSX 
VMware Aria operations

Cause

vCenter reports CPU usage in the GUI for any VM using the output of esxtop system time.

esxtop system time is an aggregate value of total CPU usage of vCPUs of the VM plus the system time consumed by ESX kernel threads on that VM's behalf (%Used + %Sys).

Note that system time consumed by kernel threads is very low for most VMs, but an Edge has network threads that can consume a lot of CPU handling traffic.

Resolution

Monitoring Edge CPU and memory usage from vCenter and vRNI is not recommended. Edge CPU usage should be monitored with the below steps:

Connect to the NSX Edge node via SSH as admin and run the following command:
> get dataplane cpu stats

Reference KB:  vCenter and vRNI Report 100% NSX-T Edge CPU Utilization but Edge vCPUs are not fully utilized .