Typical problems with IT infrastructure

Typical large datacenter is a mess. For many servers IT management often has no clue what particular server is doing, why it is needed, and who is responsible for the application installed. Often there are multiple "ghost servers" -- servers that are just circulating air, but which does not perform any useful function.  Presence of multiple contactors often create "hijacked" server situation, when the real control of the server is out of the hands of IT. All those CMDB efforts often degenerate into red tape and has little connection to reality on the datacenter floor.

There are several broad classes of problems with IT infrastructure. Among them:

• Configuration management  problems.  Historically, many configuration management initiatives have failed because the information needed to document what is required for an IT service is found in too many different places and cannot be pulled together in real-time, or even near real-time. Because these efforts have often been done manually, they are not real-time, or even near real-time enough to actually be able to show benefit to the business. Configuration management is a pre-requisite for achieving overall success in  IT. However, it certainly is not an island unto itself. It requires other pieces to be in line such as monitoring, backup, incident tracking,  performance management, etc.
• Performance problems: Slow response time, unexpected changes in performance, bottlenecks caused by faults, outages, and delays
• Lack of availability/downtime due to hardware/software failures, etc
• Catastrophic events like hurrganes, floods, fires, problem with electricity supply, air conditioning failure, etc

Slow Response Times

End users are experiencing slow response time and whether slow performance is due to the client, the server, or the network. You can also use these tools to detect problems in real time and fix them

Has increased demand caused a shortage of resources on your server? Are customers complaining about slow response times? In these days of exponential network growth, keeping up with demand can be a difficult challenge.

It's a phone call most administrators never want to receive. "The server is slow, no one can check email. Web pages are loading slowly, or not at all!" Too often administrators find themselves trying to climb up the steep slope of increased demand. As a user base grows, the demand placed on the server grows as well. This growth may be linear and predictable, or it may be completely random or exponential.

There are ways to avoid the angry phone call altogether. Understanding system bottlenecks and gathering statistical data can help you project your system's current and future needs. This can eliminate user complaints -- and prevent that phone from ringing.

What causes a bottleneck?

Why does a system slow down in the first place? Slowdowns can usually be attributed to one or more bottlenecks, which are caused when part of the system is not running fast enough to keep up with the demands placed on it. The most common bottlenecks occur for the following reasons:

• Slow disks or disk arrays aren't able to handle I/O requests quickly enough
• The system is starved for memory, so applications are forced to swap to disk, which can slow response
• The system is out of processor power
• The network interface is overloaded

So how can you tell which of these systems may be having a problem? By using the various tools of the capacity planning trade: sar, netstat, lockstat, and top

• sar

• Bottleneck Basics Understanding and Preventing Systems Slowdowns

Lack of Availability, Detecting Failing Resources

reports inform you when key resources are about to fail (that is, conditions are deteriorating) so that you can proactively troubleshoot problems before they seriously affect users.

What-If Capacity Trend report is an interactive Web-based tool, enables you to evaluate the current trends in resource usage and planning for growth and changes before problems occur.

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March 12, 2019