High Spotlight Load on Database Server
The queries Spotlight uses to collect data can place an additional load on the system under diagnosis.
Most Spotlight queries consume a measurable but not significant amount of system resources. However, queries that are complex or collect large amounts of data may put a significant load on the system.
If you find that the load that Spotlight places on your server is too high, you can adjust collection rates for different categories of Spotlight data, and so limit the load that Spotlight places on the system under analysis.
To choose a standard Spotlight setting or create your own Custom settings
- Close and re-open Spotlight.
- Select File | Connect | Spotlight.
- Right click the Spotlight connection experiencing the high load and select Properties.
- Select Overhead.
- Adjust the Spotlight load for the connection:
- Use the Overhead Management slider to adjust the overall Spotlight load.
- Alternatively, click Custom… to adjust specific load categories.
- Open the Spotlight connection.
Main Window Hard To Read
The screen resolution is too low.
Increase the number of colors your computer is using. Spotlight requires a monitor that supports 65536 colors or higher (or Hi Color/16-bit) so that it can properly shade its graphs.
- Open the Windows Control panel and double-click Display.
- Click the Settings tab.
- Increase the number of colors in the palette. If this option is not available you should upgrade your hardware.
No Change to Data Flows
Either the refresh rate is too slow or Spotlight is paused. Do the following:
- Update the screen. Click View | Refresh.
-
Check the foreground refresh rate setting (try a rate of approximately 30 seconds).
To view / change the rate click View | Options and select Data collection | Data refresh rates
- Resume Spotlight diagnostics. Click View | Resume. (If Resume is not available, Spotlight is not paused.)
Disabled Controls
Problem
I have a number of disabled controls on a Spotlight page. Every disabled control has one of these icons associated with it:
Solution
To solve the problem, view the Overhead Management page in the Component Properties editor for one of the disabled controls. You should find that the refresh setting for that component has been set to Do not refresh this control. Component Properties - Overhead Page
Background to The Problem
When Spotlight collects data from a system under investigation, it places a load on that system's resources.
Usually, the Spotlight load does not have a significant effect on the performance of the system, but when it does you can use Spotlight's overhead management tools to reduce or eliminate the load. Two factors influence overhead management:
- The categories of data collected.
- The refresh rate assigned to each category.
The categories of data collected are defined by the current Spotlight application, and are set by criteria that may include:
- The kind of data being collected.
- The load that collecting the data will put on the system.
- Where the data in the category is to be displayed.
- The importance of the data.
- How often the data is needed.
By default, every category is assigned one of the following refresh rates:
- Always refresh at the foreground rate.
- Refresh at the default rate.
- Refresh only while data is displayed on the screen.
- Do not refresh data in this category.
When you change the refresh rate for the data in a Spotlight control (a component, table or chart), you also change the refresh rate for ALL data in the same category. When you disable the refresh rate for the data in a control, you disable the refresh rate for ALL data in the same category.
A control whose data collection is disabled displays one of the indicated icons:
| Icon | Description |
|---|---|
| |
Data for this control is not available. (Alarms associated with the control are disabled.) |
 |
Data for this control is not available. (There are no alarms associated with this control.) |