amepat Command

Purpose

Active Memory Expansion Planning and Advisory Tool amepat reports Active Memory Expansion (AME) information and statistics as well as provides advisory report that assists in planning the use of Active Memory Expansion for an existing workload.

Syntax

amepat [{{[-c max_ame_cpuusage% ] | [-C max_ame_cpuusage ]}|[ -e startexpfactor [ :stopexpfactor [ :incexpfactor ] ]]}][{[ -t tgt_expmem_size]|[ -a ]}]

[ -n num_entries ] [-m min_mem_gain ] [-u minucomp_poolsize ]

[-v ] [-M] [ -N ] [-O proc=<processor implementation> ][{ [ -P recfile ] | [ Duration ] | [ Interval <Samples> ]}]

amepat [ -N ] [ -R recfile ] {[ Duration] | [ Interval <Samples>]}

Description

Workload Planning

When considering using Active Memory Expansion for an existing workload, amepat can be used to provide guidance on possible Active Memory Expansion configurations for the workload. When amepat is run concurrently with an existing workload that is not using Active Memory Expansion, amepat monitors the memory usage, memory reference patterns, and data compressibility over a user-configurable time period of the workload. The tool then generate a report with a list of possible Active Memory Expansion configurations for the workload. The tool includes an estimate of the processor utilization impacts for the different Active Memory Expansion configurations.

The amepat command can be run on all versions of IBM® Power Systems servers supported by AIX 6.1, and later.

There are two key considerations when running amepat to do workload planning: the time at which to run the tool and the duration to run the tool. To get the best possible results from the tool, the tool must be run during the period of peak utilization of the workload. It ensures that the tool captures peak of utilization and memory usage information of the workload.

To use amepat to generate a report for workload planning, a monitoring duration must be specified when starting amepat.

In addition to using amepat on workload that are not yet using Active Memory Expansion, amepat can also be run in LPAR’s where Active Memory Expansion is already enabled. When used in this mode, amepat it provides a report of other possible Active Memory Expansion configurations for the workload.

Monitoring

amepat can also be used to monitor the processor and memory utilization statistics (Disabling the workload planning capability). With this Monitoring capability, amepat just gathers processor and memory utilization statistics, does not gather the additional data required for generating the report for workload planning. Thus, Active Memory Expansion Modeling and Advisory reports are not generated.

When amepat is started without a duration or interval, amepat defaults to monitoring only capability, and amepat reports a snapshot of the LPAR’s memory, processor utilization.

amepat can be started with duration and run with Monitoring only capability using the -N flag. The -N flag disables the workload planning capability of this tool, thus disabling the data gathering process & reporting for workload planning.

amepat Report

Following are the six different sections of report displayed by the amepat tool:

Command Information Section

The Command Information Section provides details about the arguments passed to the amepat tool, time of invocation, the total time the system is monitored and the number of samples collected.

System Configuration Section

The System Configuration Section provides details about the system configuration. The following table provides the complete list of information reported.

System Resource Statistics

System Resource Statistics provides details about the system resource utilization from CPU/Memory Stand point. The following table shows various statistics related to system resource utilization

Active Memory Expansion Statistics

Active Memory Expansion Statistics provides details about the Active Memory Expansion statistics. This section is only displayed if Active Memory Expansion has been enabled for the LPAR. The following table describes the various statistics that are reported

Active Memory Expansion Modeled Statistics

Active Memory Expansion Modeled Statistics provides details about the modeled statistics for Active Memory Expansion. The following table provides the information about the modeled statistics.

Recommendation

Recommendation provides details about the Active Memory Expansion configuration that would provide optimal benefits to the current running workload.

amepat can be started using the System Management Interface Tool (SMIT) smit amepat fast path to run this command.

Flags

Exit Status

ATTENTION: RBAC users and Trusted AIX users: 

This command can perform privileged operations. Only privileged users can run privileged operations.

Examples

1. To display Active Memory Expansion Monitoring only report, enter:

   amepat

2. To monitor the workload, for the duration of 16 minutes with 8 minute sampling interval and 2 samples, generate report for Workload Planning, enter:

   amepat 8 2

3. To monitor the workload for a duration of 16 minutes and generate Active Memory Expansion report for Workload Planning with modeled memory expansion factors between 1.5 and 3 at 0.5 incremental factor, enter:

   amepat –e 1.50:3.00:0.5 16

4. To monitor the workload for a duration of 16 minutes and generate Active Memory Expansion report for Workload Planning with capping the modeled AME processor usage to 30%, enter:

   amepat –c 30 16

5. To monitor the workload for a duration of 16 minutes and generate Active Memory Expansion report for Workload Planning with starting modeled memory gain of 1000 MB, enter:

   amepat –m 1000 16

6. To monitor the workload for a duration of 16 minutes and generate Active Memory Expansion report for Workload Planning by modeling a minimum uncompressed pool size 2000 MB, enter:

   amepat –u 2000 16 

7. To use the recording mode of amepat to generate the recording file and generate reports with various filters, enter:

   Start Recording for a duration of 60 minutes.

   amepat -R myrecord_amepat 60

   Note: The recording mode will switch itself into background process.

   Generate Report for Workload Planning

   amepat -P myrecord_amepat

   Generate Report for Workload Planning with the modeled memory expansion factors ranging between 2 to 4 with 0.5 delta factor

   amepat -e 2.0:4.0:0.5 -P myrecord_amepat

   Generate Monitoring only report

   amepat -N -P myrecord_amepat

8. To disable Workload Planning Capability & monitor the system for 30 minutes, enter:

   amepat -N 30

9. To monitor the workload for a duration of 60 minutes and to model for Processor Implementation P8, enter the following command:

   amepat –O proc=P8  60