I use several dual xeons right now for hosting and was curious as to what system load i should be targetting?

They all hyperthread and have 2GB of memory.

Like is under 4 acceptable? or should i really be conerned?

Steve

I am not concerned with 30.

Originally posted by Imago
I am not concerned with 30.

You're not concerned with 30? I feel sorry for your customers. :D

your goal is 0.00

Originally posted by SniperDevil
You're not concerned with 30? I feel sorry for your customers. :D
Thank you, I am moved 'cause I am my only customer. :-)
I know a mod_rewrite guru who is not concerned with 200.:eek:

For those servers, under 5 is acceptable...but keeping their loads under 1 would be the best. The less load average you have, the better uptime, and the less troubles you will have to solve...

12:45pm up 47 days, 6:01, 1 user, load average: 0.36, 0.39, 0.39
155 processes: 148 sleeping, 2 running, 0 zombie, 5 stopped
CPU0 states: 0.4% user, 1.0% system, 0.0% nice, 98.0% idle
CPU1 states: 3.0% user, 1.0% system, 0.0% nice, 95.3% idle
CPU2 states: 3.0% user, 0.2% system, 0.0% nice, 96.2% idle
CPU3 states: 3.3% user, 2.2% system, 0.0% nice, 93.3% idle
Mem: 2069008K av, 2000692K used, 68316K free, 0K shrd, 141976K buff
Swap: 2040244K av, 72972K used, 1967272K free 1059936K cached

12:45pm up 40 days, 19:01, 1 user, load average: 0.21, 1.07, 1.15
123 processes: 122 sleeping, 1 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 1.3% user, 0.4% system, 0.0% nice, 97.2% idle
CPU1 states: 0.2% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 99.3% idle
CPU2 states: 0.4% user, 2.3% system, 0.0% nice, 96.2% idle
CPU3 states: 0.0% user, 0.0% system, 0.0% nice, 100.0% idle
Mem: 2069512K av, 1763876K used, 305636K free, 0K shrd, 110832K buff
Swap: 2056312K av, 102400K used, 1953912K free 1145076K cached

12:46pm up 28 days, 9:26, 1 user, load average: 1.19, 1.11, 0.92
156 processes: 149 sleeping, 1 running, 2 zombie, 4 stopped
CPU0 states: 5.2% user, 6.2% system, 0.0% nice, 88.0% idle
CPU1 states: 2.2% user, 0.3% system, 0.0% nice, 96.4% idle
CPU2 states: 6.2% user, 2.0% system, 0.0% nice, 91.1% idle
CPU3 states: 0.5% user, 1.2% system, 0.0% nice, 97.2% idle
Mem: 2069516K av, 1993636K used, 75880K free, 0K shrd, 186876K buff
Swap: 2040244K av, 53200K used, 1987044K free 1132400K cached

12:47pm up 40 days, 19:00, 1 user, load average: 0.45, 0.50, 0.45
172 processes: 169 sleeping, 1 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 7.1% user, 1.4% system, 2.4% nice, 90.5% idle
CPU1 states: 4.2% user, 4.3% system, 0.0% nice, 90.5% idle
CPU2 states: 24.4% user, 1.1% system, 20.4% nice, 74.0% idle
CPU3 states: 4.3% user, 0.3% system, 0.0% nice, 94.4% idle
Mem: 2069512K av, 1974772K used, 94740K free, 0K shrd, 139720K buff
Swap: 2097136K av, 57108K used, 2040028K free 1191228K cached

12:47:25 up 46 days, 7:42, 2 users, load average: 2.96, 3.46, 3.40
277 processes: 274 sleeping, 1 running, 2 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 4.0% user 6.2% system 0.1% nice 0.0% iowait 89.2% idle
CPU1 states: 3.1% user 15.3% system 0.2% nice 0.0% iowait 80.5% idle
CPU2 states: 1.2% user 3.0% system 0.0% nice 0.0% iowait 95.3% idle
CPU3 states: 1.4% user 3.1% system 0.1% nice 0.0% iowait 94.4% idle
Mem: 2069268k av, 2018244k used, 51024k free, 0k shrd, 131896k buff
904632k active, 1014396k inactive
Swap: 2096440k av, 212796k used, 1883644k free 1385600k cached

12:47:29 up 43 days, 5:07, 1 user, load average: 0.28, 0.33, 0.35
150 processes: 148 sleeping, 1 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 12.1% user 2.0% system 6.4% nice 0.0% iowait 85.3% idle
CPU1 states: 14.3% user 6.1% system 5.0% nice 0.0% iowait 79.0% idle
Mem: 2069304k av, 1995460k used, 73844k free, 0k shrd, 153680k buff
575340k active, 715864k inactive
Swap: 2096440k av, 60268k used, 2036172k free 819708k cached


11:48am up 47 days, 5:28, 1 user, load average: 0.72, 0.79, 0.68
165 processes: 161 sleeping, 4 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 4.0% user, 1.3% system, 0.0% nice, 94.1% idle
CPU1 states: 4.2% user, 1.2% system, 0.0% nice, 94.0% idle
CPU2 states: 4.5% user, 5.1% system, 0.0% nice, 89.3% idle
CPU3 states: 5.0% user, 0.1% system, 0.0% nice, 94.3% idle
Mem: 1033284K av, 985104K used, 48180K free, 0K shrd, 82624K buff
Swap: 2040244K av, 423400K used, 1616844K free 383772K cached

sure mine jumps around here is right now:

12:09pm up 18:09, 1 user, load average: 4.80, 3.79, 2.87
133 processes: 131 sleeping, 1 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU0 states: 13.0% user, 19.0% system, 5.0% nice, 66.1% idle
CPU1 states: 5.0% user, 0.0% system, 5.0% nice, 94.0% idle
CPU2 states: 10.0% user, 1.0% system, 5.0% nice, 88.0% idle
CPU3 states: 7.0% user, 0.1% system, 7.0% nice, 91.0% idle
Mem: 2069544K av, 2016560K used, 52984K free, 0K shrd, 194696K buff
Swap: 2048276K av, 8200K used, 2040076K free 1018792K cached


but even in teh time to write this message i am down to 4 up to 6 i see it alot of the time around 2.

Just a side note,

for a HT dual xeon, does a load of 4 means there is 4 process waiting for a a processor and they can be simultaneously be process? (So basically, does this mean the same as a load of 1 on a single cpu machine?)

Thanks

Close enough for our purposes, since there's only one process in each run queue. Load average is not an absolute measure of performance, anyway. Several of my boxes won't go above 1, even when the CPU is pinned, since there's only one process (squid) eating all of the resources.