Utilization alternating High and Low

[spi200]

Production Netware 5.1 sp3 compaq server with raid 5 all of a sudden users reported slow response times. Utilization would push to 60% then drop for a moment and go back to 60%.
Writes to disk seemed to be the best way of seeing the poor response, but reads would also be slow.
No errors reported by Compaq insight manager and the disk request and packets were high.
NO changes have been made to the server in months and the server has been up for 4 months.

A reboot of the server has fixed the problem for now. Any suggestions would be appreciated - I have worked with Novell server for years and not seem the like of this.

 

[salserocito]

When you noticed this happening, did you take a look at what Threads were active and at what percentage of Processor usage? Knowing this may answer some of your questions.

What about your Available Cache Buffer percentage? How about the Current Disk Requests and Dirty Cache Buffers stats?

Also, what any Virus related applications that may have been updating at the client level. Since both McAfee and Norton both have the Auto-update ability, maybe thats what you were noticing?

Good Luck!

 

[spi200]

Thanks Sal
Dirty cache buffers and disk requests were low. Available cache buffers were over 80%.I did not check the treads, so I will look into it to get a base line incase it happens again.
We use Norton antivirus, only for our servers and updates are done outside of work hours.
regards

David