Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!caen!b-tech!ais.org!jfk From: jfk@ais.org (Jim Knight) Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp Subject: Re: LaserRX Message-ID: <979+HNC@irie.ais.org> Date: 5 Feb 91 01:29:07 GMT References: Sender: jfk@ais.org Distribution: comp Organization: UMCC, Ann Arbor, MI Lines: 65 In article wayne@dsndata.uucp (Wayne Schlitt) writes: > >i just got a flier from HP about their LaserRX product, and i have a >few questions that i hope someone can answer... I assume you are addressing LaserRX/UX the unix product, all the observations below are for the MPE/XL Box (Hp3000 9xx series). Btw, I am familiar with operation on a HP9000 series 855 > >1) why is it called LaserRX? it doesnt seem to have anything to do > with lasers (or cdroms or read/write optical disks which use > lasers). The software comes on CDROM, sort of like LaserRom Which is HP's manual sets on Laser disk (cdrom) :) >2) i have a nice hp9000/370 sitting on my desk. why am i supposed to > buy a pc in order to run LaserRX? (and, of course, i would have > to buy another desk to put it on, and maybe a bigger office, > and...) can a pc really do something that my HP-UX box cant? if > so, does that mean i really should be junking all my HP-UX systems > and start developing for the pc instead? For a 370, all you probably really want is Glance which I'm not sure is available for the 9000's yet. >3) what does LaserRX give me that the hp monitor, uptime, iostat, > vmstat and unix accounting doesnt already give me? the only think i > can think of that they show is pretty color graphs... gee, you > would think X windows could do that, but... LaserRX provides very detailed information on what is happening on your system without running monitor, iostat etc. all the time. There is a collector process that runs. All the analysis of the data is then done on a PC. You can graph by day, hour, or even 5 minute intervals, and get detailed information by process. >having come from a mainframe background, i have always been _real_ >disappointed with the primitive system performance analysis tools that >unix has. > I agree here, the HP 3000's have always had nice tools... >the most important one that is missing is some way of figure out how >much i/o is going a given file or directory structures so you can >figure out how you should split your file system over a series of disk >and spread the i/o around. sure, it is _easy_ to balance the disk >usage across a bunch of disks, but i want to balance the i/o load >across a bunch of disks. will LaserRX help me do this? > Specifically, I doubt that LaserRX is going to give you this information. I use it to see what the bottlenecks are, and to predict when and where I might need more CPU / memory / etc. We also use it to determine CPU utilization. It's amazing how little our computer is used during non prime time hours. It's a good tool, I'm just not sure it fits your situation. Jim -- ================================================================= Come Visit M-net. Michigan's Public Access Unix and Conferencing (313) 994-6333 jfk@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us jfk@ais.org