NMONVisualizer

Overview

NMONVisualizer can process IOStat files from both AIX and Linux if the correct command line switches must be used.

Linux

• Must use the -t option to include timestamps and export S_TIME_FORMAT=ISO to format it.
  By default, timestamps will be in the default locale of the OS. To ensure consistency, the ISO 8601 format must be used. This has the added benefit of including a time zone in each timestamp. Note that this option is not avaiable on older versions of IOStat so they are not compatible.
• May use
  • -c, CPU data only
  • -d, disk data only
  • -N, show mpath and LVM names rather than device mapper names (dm-x)
  • -x, extended disk statistics
  • -p <device>, partition data
  • -k or -m to display KB or MB instead of blocks
    Note that this should be the same on all hosts so data between hosts can be compared.
• Cannot use
  • -y which skips output of summary data at the start
  • -z which skips output of zeroed data
  • -h which outputs human readable NFS output

Example command: export S_TIME_FORMAT=ISO;iostat -tNxm <interval> <count>

Locales

Note that iostat output is localized to your configured language. In practice, this means that number formatting will change depending on what locale server is configured for. NMONVisualizer should adapt as necessary provided it is running in the same locale. If parsing is failing due to number formatting, please ensure your locale is correctly configured. You can set this manually for the JVM by passing -Duser.language and -Duser.region to the Java command line when you start NMONVisualizer.

AIX

• Must use the -T option to include timestamps.
  Note that AIX does not have an option to include the time zone like Linux. In addition, the time format does not include the date. So, AIX files will always prompt for this information.
• May use
  • -a, adapter information
  • -s, system information, including the hostname. Recommended to avoid manual hostname entry.
  • -m, path data
  • -f, file system data
  • -Dl extended disk stats in long format. (short format, without -l is not supported).
• Cannot use
  • -V which skips output of zeroed data
  • -X which outputs in XML format

Recommended commands:

• iostat -Tsam <interval> <count> - output adapter and path information
• iostat -Tsf <interval> <count> - output disk and file system information
• iostat -TsDl <interval> <count> - output extended disk statistics