Spotlight on DB2 6.10

Spotlight is a powerful diagnostic and problem-resolution tool for Windows operating systems. Its unique user interface provides you with an intuitive, visual representation of the activity on the host machine.

For information on Spotlight on Windows, see these sections

Section	Description
Background Information	Introductory material to Spotlight on Windows.
Connect to a Windows System	Create / Modify / Delete connections to Windows systems.
Home Page	The Spotlight home page shows the flow of information and commands between various sub-components and the size and status of internal resources such as processes, disk files and memory structures.
Alarms	Spotlight alerts you to problems with your system by issuing an alarm. You can configure Spotlight in the level of severity that constitutes an alarm, to disable an alarm, and the actions Spotlight takes on raising the alarm.
Drilldowns	When you have isolated a problem, you can display a drilldown page, whose charts and tables provide a detailed breakdown of the underlying statistics.
View \| Options	Customize Spotlight.
Troubleshooting	Solve problems using Spotlight.

For information on using Spotlight applications See

Spotlight Basics

Summary Page

The Memory | Summary page summarizes recent memory usage.

To open the Summary page

Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
Click Memory | Summary.

Charts on the Summary page

Notes:

Every chart has a legend (list of symbols) to its right that describes the various series (line graphs) on the chart.
Click an item in the legend to highlight its series (line) in the chart. Click a second time to return the series to its normal appearance.
Move the mouse pointer over an item in the legend to view the current value for that series within the chart.

Chart

Description

Physical Memory

The Physical Memory chart shows how much physical memory (RAM) Windows is using.

Physical memory usage will normally remain close to the total amount of physical memory installed on the system unless the amount of physical memory you have exceeds the amount of virtual memory that Windows is using. Windows normally keeps some physical memory available (free) for immediate reuse.

Virtual Memory

The total amount of memory in use by the program. This includes Physical Memory and space in the paging file. A steady increase in virtual memory usage can indicate that a process on the system has a memory leak.

Paging

Shows the rate at which pages are being swapped in and out of memory. The chart displays two data series:

Page ins — The Page Ins value includes hard pages (paging requests that have to go to the paging file on disk) NOT soft pages (requests for memory pages that are not in the program's working set, but still in memory).
Page outs — The Page Outs value provides the number of write requests to the paging file on disk.

A sustained high rate of paging can cause problems with overall system degradation due to disk thrashing and CPU load.

Physical Memory Usage

The Physical Memory Usage chart shows how Windows is using physical memory.

It displays the following data series:

Series	Description
Free	Available physical memory not currently in use.
Processes	Memory being used by Windows processes. This will normally be the largest area by a significant degree.
Kernel	Memory being used by the Windows kernel.
File Cache	Memory that Windows is using to cache disk files in order to speed reads and writes.

Paging Activity Page

The Memory | Paging Activity page shows details of Windows paging activity and page files.

To open the Paging Activity page

Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
Click Memory | Paging Activity.

Charts and Grid on the Paging Activity page

Notes:

Every chart has a legend (list of symbols) to its right that describes the various series (line graphs) on the chart.
Click an item in the legend to highlight its series (line) in the chart. Click a second time to return the series to its normal appearance.
Move the mouse pointer over an item in the legend to view the current value for that series within the chart.

Charts and Grid

Description

Page File Transfers Chart

The Page File Transfers chart shows recent Windows paging activity. It shows the number of pages read (in) and written (out) per second to and from the Page Files.

Paging occurs when the Windows Virtual Memory Manager moves data or code between physical memory and disk. Sustained high paging rates can degrade system performance significantly.

Page Faults Chart

The Page Faults chart shows the rate at which Windows is processing page faults. It compares the two types of page fault (soft and hard) and makes it easy to see the ratio between them.

A page fault occurs when a process references a page that is not in that processes working set (the set of pages visible to that process in physical memory). When this happens, the process has to wait while the Windows Virtual Memory Manager retrieves the page from virtual memory.

A soft page fault occurs when Windows finds the required page somewhere in physical memory.
A hard page fault occurs when the page is not in physical memory and Windows has to read it from the page files. This is by far the more expensive of the two as it involves disk I/O. Hard page faults are the cause of paging and can degrade performance significantly.

Page Files Grid

The Page Files grid shows the page files in use by Windows.

Page files are disk files that the Windows Virtual Memory Manager uses to back physical memory. Code and data is moved between physical memory and the page files as required, giving processes on the system the illusion that there is much more physical memory available than there really is. The process of moving data and code between memory and disk is called paging.

The Page Files grid shows the following:

Column	Description
Location	Page File location (file name).
Size	The page file size (MB).
Used	The current Used space (MB) in the page file.
% Used	The current Used space as a percentage of the page file size.
Peak %	The peak percentage of space used in the specified page file.

Cache Page

The Memory | Cache page shows detailed information about system cache.

To open the Cache page

Select the Spotlight connection in the Spotlight Browser.
Click Memory | Cache.

Charts on the Cache page

Notes:

Every chart has a legend (list of symbols) to its right that describes the various series (line graphs) on the chart.
Click an item in the legend to highlight its series (line) in the chart. Click a second time to return the series to its normal appearance.
Move the mouse pointer over an item in the legend to view the current value for that series within the chart.

Chart	Description
Cache Hit Rate	Shows a recent summary of the percentage of file requests that are satisfied by the file cache, and that do not require a disk read.
Cache Size	Shows the recent history of memory allocated to the file cache. Memory allocated to the file cache is dynamic. This is controlled by the Disk Cache Manager, and will alter the level of memory based upon how much physical memory is being used by other applications and is available in the system.
Physical Cache I/O	Shows the rate of Reads and Writes being made to the file cache.
Cache Faults	This chart displays the number of faults that occur when a requested page is not found in the file system cache, and must be retrieved from elsewhere. The chart displays the number of faults, NOT the number of pages faulted in each operation.

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Recommended Solutions for Your Problem

Spotlight on DB2 6.10 - User Guide

Memory Drilldown

Summary Page

Paging Activity Page

Cache Page