server load
 

what is the optimum server load to have? obviously the lower the better, but what is acceptable? My host says below 5 is ok, my programmer says it should be below 1...which is it?

look, if it's not a "cute cat" thread - we will not reply

We like to keep it below 1, at 5 your sites are loading slowly.

Good to know!

yeah when its 5 its not good..:)

When its above 5, cute cats are being stomped on with stilettos and being lit on fire.

Your server can be above 20 and be just fine.

below 5? geeez. that seems a bit low.

LOL! Check this out! Its a copy and paste from one of my trouble tickets on one of my servers from a few years back. Talk about MOSTER LOADS! These are MONSTER LOADS!!


"We are getting loads up to 400.00 we are Usually around 10.0 or so.
But since the comfiguration last night we've had some harddrive crahses and loads 10 times higher than normal."


Now that is a load!!

Dont worry about your 5 or lower loads dude.

When it hits 400.00 then you can start to worry.

Load averages are a very misunderstood number.

The real answer is this:

For each virtual CPU and each Disk you are allowed to add 1 unit of measure.

In other words on a Dual Core system with 1 drive, you can technically run ok with a load average of 3 or lower.

However I dont like to count the disks therefore for this system a load average less than 2.0 is acceptable.

So if you have a quad core box with 1 drive, 5 is a reasonable number.

Now Unix is a very robust platform and we have servers that have say 2x Dual Core cpus theoretically giving a max load average of 4. But they may run from 10-20 and still perform up to speed - however they are VERY loaded concurrent servers, for example forums with 3000-4000 active sessions.

For your issue, I'd say take the number of virtual CPUs and try to keep the load less than that number.