bob@consult.UUCP (Bob Willey) (02/01/90)
In article <826@rupert.mdavcr.UUCP> dougf@mdavcr.UUCP (Douglas Floer) writes: >In the Dec 11 issue of UNIX Today, Page 8, Anvil Designs of Santa Clara >advertises a product called "Monitor" that sounds suspiciously like the >monitor posting to this newsgroup of about 6 months ago. Anyone have any >background on it? >Doug Floer, MDA, Richmond, BC, Canada ..!uunet!van-bc!mdavcr!dougf Doug, This program DOES exist and is really pretty nice. I used the public domain version and thought it was GREAT, UNTIL.. I saw Monitor by Anvil. There is a few problem in the reporting of memory usage and such in V1.0, but in talking to management at Anvil they are only a few weeks from shipping V1.1 which will be the real work horse. The Monitor utility has come in very handy, and will actually teach you a lot about how Xenix works internally by going thru the various screens and watching activity in the system and what it does to various resource. It monitors CPU, Memory, Disk, & Buffers. And get very detailed in the advanced screens. It does link into the kernel to get the info that it needs. It takes approx. 438K to run. If I can provide any additional info just let me know. ** I am not affiliated with Anvil except as a happy customer/reseller ** -- .. Computer Consulting Service .. Bob Willey, CDP .. .. P.O. Drawer 1690 .. uunet!consult!bob .. .. Easton, Maryland 21601 .. (301) 820-4670 .. ...............................................................
jim@bahamut.fsc.com (James O'Connor) (02/02/90)
In article <961@bbx.UUCP>, russ@bbx.UUCP (Russ Kepler) writes: : In article <826@rupert.mdavcr.UUCP> dougf@mdavcr.UUCP (Douglas Floer) writes: : >In the Dec 11 issue of UNIX Today, Page 8, Anvil Designs of Santa Clara : >advertises a product called "Monitor" that sounds suspiciously like the : >monitor posting to this newsgroup of about 6 months ago. Anyone have any : >background on it? : > : : In order to nip this one in the bud I looked over the software and it : isn't the same - even though it has some of the same capabilities. Of : course I didn't examine the source but it certainly didn't appear to : be a ripoff. My HP rep also told me about a product called Monitor which they sell for their HP 9000 computers. I showed her our "Usenet monitor" program and she told me that it was not the same thing, but did some very similar work. Perhaps the HP Monitor and Anvil Designs Monitor are the same thing. ------------- James B. O'Connor Work: jim@tiamat.fsc.com Data Processing Manager Play: jim@bahamut.fsc.com Ahlstrom Filtration, Inc. UUCP: uunet!tiamat!jim
jct@jct.UUCP (John C. Tompkins) (02/03/90)
In article <269@consult.UUCP>, bob@consult.UUCP (Bob Willey) writes: > In article <826@rupert.mdavcr.UUCP> dougf@mdavcr.UUCP (Douglas Floer) writes: > >In the Dec 11 issue of UNIX Today, Page 8, Anvil Designs of Santa Clara > >advertises a product called "Monitor" that sounds suspiciously like the > >monitor posting to this newsgroup of about 6 months ago. Anyone have any > > Doug, This program DOES exist and is really pretty nice. > ............ > the info that it needs. It takes approx. 438K to run. ^^^^ Well I'm not in the business of selling RAM chips :-). As the author of the FREE monitor I wrote it to fit the hardware I had, 286 Xenix. I've now moved up to 386 SCO UNIX which has a lot more useful data (and the all important NON-segmented memory!!!) Anybody interested in a FREE 386 SCO UNIX version? Hey, if I was interested in money I wouldn't be working for a living! John C. Tompkins uokmax!occrsh!jct!jct
mob@anvil.oz (Michael O'Brien) (02/06/90)
dougf@mdavcr.UUCP (Douglas Floer) writes: >In the Dec 11 issue of UNIX Today, Page 8, Anvil Designs of Santa Clara >advertises a product called "Monitor" that sounds suspiciously like the >monitor posting to this newsgroup of about 6 months ago. Anyone have any >background on it? >Doug Floer, MDA, Richmond, BC, Canada ..!uunet!van-bc!mdavcr!dougf ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In August 1989, Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. released Monitor a Unix performance and tuning software package. This package is not to be confused with a piece of "netware" by the same name that was released onto the net about the same time. That monitor package was like a visual ps command and its focus was to visually give per-process feedback. MONITOR by Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. is quite different in approach. MONITOR gives complete performance data about the whole system. All data is presented graphically with bar graphs and charts. MONITOR goes far beyond the Unix sar or ps command. Major subsystems within unix are examined. Disk fragmentation, disk activity, and per filesystem accesses can be compared. Cpu utilization for processes and within the Operating system can be isolated. The percentage of cpu time spent servicing floating point emulation, performing interrupts, swapping, in process control and in many other kernel subsystems is displayed. Indeed, these subsystems can be altered by the end user to profile inside Unix as required. This allows determining faulty hardware which consumes cpu cycles (such as a faulty serial card). Memory usage for each process is displayed, and the working set of memory resident in memory and being heavily accessed is also available. This allows exact computation of how much memory is used by an application, and how many more users can be added to the system. MONITOR can operate in interactive mode or in logging mode where all data is stored in a log file. This log file can be replayed later to view the performance data. The replay speed can be controlled to give a fast forward effect. MONITOR uses a device driver to gather the statistics necessary. MONITOR costs $350 US and comes complete with a 200 page manual. This manual comprehensively deals with all unix tuning and performance issues and is also a collection of much of the unix tuning folklore. MONITOR and is available for SCO Unix or Xenix and soon for Interactive 386/IX and AT&T Unix. Contact Anvil Designs Inc. 983 University Ave Building B, Suite 104 Los Gatos, CA 95030 US Tel (408) 395-5775 Fax (408) 395-6396 or Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. 56 Sylvan Rd, Toowong. Australia 4066 Tel (617) 870-4999 Fax (617) 371-8881 e-mail ...!uunet!munnari!anvil.oz!mob Michael O'Brien Director Development Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd.
jct@jct.UUCP (John C. Tompkins) (02/10/90)
In article <1042@anvil.oz>, mob@anvil.oz (Michael O'Brien) writes: > In August 1989, Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. released Monitor a Unix performance > and tuning software package. This package is not to be confused with a > piece of "netware" by the same name that was released onto the net about the > same time. That monitor package was like a visual ps command and its focus > was to visually give per-process feedback. Hopefully it did that, but it also displays the sysinfo data on overall system performance which is about all that is available on XENIX-286. There is no "vmstat" information or disk access times and so on available. There is data on CPU usage, swapping, free memory, system calls, CPU hogs, disk IO ... > MONITOR by Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. is quite different in approach. MONITOR > gives complete performance data about the whole system. All data is > presented graphically with bar graphs and charts. MONITOR goes far beyond > the Unix sar or ps command. Major subsystems within unix are examined. > Disk fragmentation, disk activity, and per filesystem accesses can be > compared. I don't quite agree with "quite different approach" but it does sound nifty. I supply all the data in bar graphs too! I think the disk fragmentation data might not be appropriate for continuous, realtime monitoring. It sounds something like a prettied up fsanalyze. > Cpu utilization for processes and within the Operating system can be > isolated. The percentage of cpu time spent servicing floating point > emulation, performing interrupts, swapping, in process control and in > many other kernel subsystems is displayed. Indeed, these subsystems > can be altered by the end user to profile inside Unix as required. This So is this something beyond the UNIX/386 PROFILER (ADM) commands? The cpu time spent "servicing floating point emulation" would be a neat trick. I've been trying to figure that one myself, haven't got it yet. Swapping and interrupts are easy, although it appears that XENIX doesn't use the sysinfo supplied serial IO interrupt counters for anything. Are these interrupts something beyond this? > Memory usage for each process is displayed, and the working set of memory > resident in memory and being heavily accessed is also available. This > allows exact computation of how much memory is used by an application, and > how many more users can be added to the system. Displaying the memory usage ain't so tough! :-). I don't want to be picky but obviously there is more to deciding if more users may be added than just how much memory is left (which this implies to me) Does this include the virtual memory activity as well? > MONITOR can operate in interactive mode or in logging mode where all data is > stored in a log file. This log file can be replayed later to view the > performance data. The replay speed can be controlled to give a fast forward > effect. OK so I don't do that, I wrote my monitor just to satisfy my needs. If I want logging and long term averaging I just use sadc/sar instead. > MONITOR uses a device driver to gather the statistics necessary. Oh yeah?, an Anvil supplied driver, the /dev/prf driver for PROFILER (ADM) or what? A driver just for this purpose would be nice, solve some problems and perhaps increase the monitoring efficiency (a little). But all in all I dont know that its worth the effort. After all /dev/mem and /dev/kmem are drivers too! > MONITOR costs $350 US and comes complete with a 200 page manual. This manual > comprehensively deals with all unix tuning and performance issues and is > also a collection of much of the unix tuning folklore. > > Michael O'Brien > Director Development > Anvil Designs Pty. Ltd. How about network services and streams monitoring as well? I still think monitoring the print queues (an improved lpstat) and serial ports (siomon is handy but needs to be expanded and integrated into a larger package) would be handy. Does the Anvil monitor do this? What bothers me is why should we have to pay money for a system administration tool that should come as a normal part of the operation system? Why does SCO put the sysinfo data in XENIX-286 and then not tell anyone about it much less have utilities available to access it? This is how the nonsense that UNIX is hard to use got started and continues getting passed around. UNIX is not hard to use, the OS vendors just don't go to the trouble of making it easy. It seems to be the old "well this is the way its always been" attitude. I give away my monitor utility just to show it doesn't have to be that way. Am I the only one who feels this way? I better not be if UNIX is to compete with OS/2 on the desktop or VMS on minis. Dollars/mip and development environmets are great but I want even more! :-) John C. Tompkins uokmax!occrsh!jct!jct