Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : Should I be concerned?

[futts]

Hi WHT,

Lately I've noticed something with my webhost that I picked up here in the advertisement section. I'm a little concerned about it but I wanted to get the opinion of more experienced users.

As of late, I noticed my website being a little sluggish. I chalked it up to perhaps my not optimizing vBulletin correctly or something. I checked the Server Status in cPanel several times to be sure and noticed that "Server Load" is nearly ALWAYS in the red.

3.74 (4 cpus) awhile ago. 3.10 right now. Earlier today or yesterday I think I saw it at 6.XX something!

It's just something I wanted to keep my eye on. Should I alert my host to this?

[SamBarrow]

Load is relative to the number of CPUs, so 6 can be really bad or not bad at all. However if it's in red that probably means it's high.

Let them know, but if they have their server set up properly with CSF they should have gotten a notification.

[Amy-T]

Well usually red means a bad thing and if your site is sluggish that is not a good thing either.
Open a ticket with them and let them know of your concerns.

[selectbackup]

i think %3 is high ,
and what time have you checked the CPU status ? it might be due to the cpanel backup ,

[revhos]

It may be due to your host overselling its deffo something you should querie or it may be due to the time of the day. With more people useing website on the server

[FernGullyGraphics]

I wouldn't necessarily worry about the notification inside of cpanel (because that can be very misleading). However if you are experiencing slow load times with your site in correlation with the times the server load is showing 6+, then I think you should definitely contact your host about this.

[SH-Mau]

@futts: load average could confuse, best way is loading and monitoring your site. High load averages are expected and somehow normal on servers running backups and/or control software.

Now if you notice the issues regular and every time they're more often, then I'd contact them and ask them to move to a less busy server

[Net-Buster]

High load average during a certain time of day is normal as server is probably busy in executing cron jobs but an average load of approx 6 for a 4 cpu server is relatively high.

Not sure about your budget or other requirements, but you ought to consider for minimum 8 core server if you would like a good loading speed for your website(s)

Wish you luck and a Great Day

[Backupteddy]

I wouldn't look too hard at load average.

As long your websites are loading fast thats what counts. I imagine there is another user running something heavy. Perhaps you should let your host know between X and Y hours your website becomes slow and load is higher than average - so they can investigate.

[futts]

Thanks everyone.

The website itself is really small. A forum for about twenty people MAXIMUM right now.

I did file a ticket because last night the server went down for awhile, then the MySQL went down with it and took a little longer to come back up. This would all be understandable if this wasn't happening a lot. Just my luck it happens at night when most of my users are on there, haha. It's a bit embarrassing.

I was basically blown off and told there is nothing wrong on their end when they checked. Of course, they checked when everything was back to normal and no comment on the high load. (I would have accepted a same answer as what you guys provided.)

I am gonna document it in detail as you have suggested. Times, etc.

Thanks again!

[FernGullyGraphics]

Originally Posted by futts

Thanks everyone.

The website itself is really small. A forum for about twenty people MAXIMUM right now.

I did file a ticket because last night the server went down for awhile, then the MySQL went down with it and took a little longer to come back up. This would all be understandable if this wasn't happening a lot. Just my luck it happens at night when most of my users are on there, haha. It's a bit embarrassing.

I was basically blown off and told there is nothing wrong on their end when they checked. Of course, they checked when everything was back to normal and no comment on the high load. (I would have accepted a same answer as what you guys provided.)

I am gonna document it in detail as you have suggested. Times, etc.

Thanks again!

If you do not mind me asking, who are you currently hosted with and what type of forum software are you using for your website? You might want to make sure that you do not have persistent MYSQL connections enabled. There was a recent topic about this here on WHT you can read it here: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=1035428

Other than that, I would also recommend signing up for a website monitoring service like pingdom so you can be alerted anytime your website goes down. http://www.pingdom.com/

[fshagan]

Another website monitoring service (that has a generous free account) is http://mon.itor.us

[Amy-T]

Speaking of monitoring. One thing I noticed about an ad software I use they notify you if your site goes down for more then 5 minutes so I use them as an ad software and a monitoring service that is free.

It is called Projectwonderful.com.

[ldcdc]

I will second Pingdom. To a degree, it might even be useful to notice significant periods of server sluggishness (it records the time it takes to get a response).

[LevelHosting Inc]

Originally Posted by Amy-T

Well usually red means a bad thing and if your site is sluggish that is not a good thing either.
Open a ticket with them and let them know of your concerns.

One thing to keep in mind is, this setting can be tweaked/reconfigured in WHM. The minimum load average for the overall system will cause the server status to appear in red. However, if they have 4 CPU's and set the critical load threshold to 8 or 10 and the server load is sitting at 6 it will still show as green and not red.

In general, a good rule of thumb to follow is a load average of 1 per CPU. Of course, you would not want this load average sustained but if there are spikes here and there that is alright. In fact, if they have 4 CPU's then a load average of 4 for the short term is tolerable. This is also depends on the companies procedures and beliefs as well. For example, some companies may not want to see their load average over 1 for a continuous period and others might be okay with it constantly at 6 or 8.

As for your host, I am sure they are aware of the server load average. There would be no harm on your end if you were to open a ticket and address your concerns. From the reply you receive you will be able to get a feel for your providers sense of concern or urgency. As a side note, if your site is still responsive and prompt let it slide and continue to monitor its performance.