[dtrace-discuss] Using DTrace to monitor productions systems

[Andreas.Haas at Sun.COM]

Hi Dirk,

let me join Adam in encouraging you.

With Grid Engine 6.1 pre-release we're doing exactly the same

    http://wiki.gridengine.info/wiki/index.php/Dtrace#Dtrace-based_Master_monitoring_under_Solaris_10

this specification document contains real-world samples for 
illustration purposes.

Note, there might be a need to prevent functions tracked through
pid provider be inlined. Unfortunately this is not yet mentioned in
Dtrace docs but you'll find anything important under

    http://bugs.opensolaris.org/view_bug.do?bug_id=6480235

Grüße,
Andreas

On Thu, 14 Dec 2006, Adam Leventhal wrote:

> Hi Dirk,
>
> We've used DTrace with great success on production applications at various
> financial institutions. In parituclar I've used the pid provider to examine
> a trading application to measure latency between different parts of the
> system in precisely the way you suggest.
>
> DTrace is always safe so there are no special precautions you need to make
> when using it on a production system. The performance impact will be relative
> to the frequency with which traced functions are called. On production systems
> in particular, I'm always careful to trace exactly the functions I need
> whereas I might just trace everything in a situation where I could safely
> kill performance.
>
> If you need some more specific advice let us know.
>
> Adam
>
> On Wed, Dec 13, 2006 at 11:28:19PM -0800, Dirk Volkmar wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> we are developing and operating an very critical application in the financial sector. Now our customer wants us to report performance data (roundtrip times of the messages routed).
>> My idea is using dtrace  to measure the times with the pid provider catching the timestamps on entry of the in and out functions of the processes.
>> Now my questions ;-):
>>
>> 1) Is this an appropriate method to monitor [b]production [/b]system ?
>> 2) Are there impacts on the [b]stability [/b]of the system ?
>> 3) I can imagine that dtracing impacts the [b]performance[/b]. Has anybody 	experience how much it will impact?
>>
>> Thanks for Your Comments
>> Dirk
>>
>>
>> This message posted from opensolaris.org
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>
> -- 
> Adam Leventhal, Solaris Kernel Development       http://blogs.sun.com/ahl
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