Entry to monitoring

Entry to monitoring

How can we find that the server is not running well? When the user tells you that the system has problems, these problems may already exist for a while. If the problem cannot be solved for a long time, the system diagnosis and repair process will be complicated.

This chapter uses the basic tools provided by various systems to test MySQL monitoring at the operating system layer, this is because system services or applications are always dependent on the operating system and the performance of their own hardware. If the operating system has poor performance, the performance of the database system or application installed on the operating system will not be good.

First, let's examine why the monitoring system should be used, then look at the basic monitoring tasks running on mainstream operating systems, and discuss how the monitoring system makes preventive maintenance easier. Once you have mastered these skills, you can have a better understanding of your database system. The next chapter will focus on more details about monitoring MySQL servers and introduce some user guides to solve common performance problems.

Monitoring Method

When we think of "monitoring", we usually think of some early warning systems used to monitor problems. However, the word "Monitoring (as a verb)" refers to "using an instrument to observe, record, or detect an operation or environment without affecting the operating environment" (http://www.dictionary.com ). These early warning systems adopt a combination of automatic sampling and forecasting systems for early warning.

Linux and UNIX operating systems are complex and have many parameters that affect all behaviors of primary and secondary system activities. Optimizing the performance of these operating systems can be said to be an art, not a technology. Unlike some desktop operating systems, Linux and UNIX (and their variants) do not hide system optimization tools, nor limit your system optimization. Some desktop operating systems, such as Mac OS X and windows, hide many basic mechanisms behind the user-friendly visual interface.

For example, the Mac OS X operating system is a very elegant and smooth operating system. Under normal circumstances, it only requires a little or no user's attention. However, as you can see in the following sections, the Mac OS x operating system provides many advanced monitoring tools that can help you optimize the Mac OS X operating system.

Windows has many versions. The latest version is Windows 7. Fortunately, most of these versions contain the same monitoring tools that users can use to optimize the system to meet specific needs. Although windows is not as good as Mac OS X, it provides many user-accessible optimization options.

There are three main types of system monitoring: system performance, application performance, and security. You may start System Monitoring for some special reasons, but generally any monitoring task can be classified as one of the three categories.

Each type uses different tool sets (with some overlaps) and the monitored objects are also different. For example, monitoring system performance can ensure that the system can run at the highest efficiency, and monitoring application performance is to ensure that a single application can run at the highest efficiency, however, monitoring security aims to ensure that the system is protected in the most secure mode.

Monitoring a MySQL server is similar to monitoring an application. This is because MySQL, like most database systems, needs to measure many variables and status indicators that have little or no relationship with the operating system. However, the database system is very vulnerable to the impact of the host operating system. Therefore, before diagnosing database system problems, it is important to ensure that the host operating system runs well.

Because our purpose is to monitor the MySQL system to ensure that the database system can be executed with the highest efficiency, the following sections will discuss the performance monitoring of the operating system. Security Monitoring will be detailed in other chapters.

Benefits of monitoring

There are two monitoring methods: active monitoring and passive monitoring. You may want to monitor to make sure everything has not changed (no performance degradation, no security vulnerabilities), or find out where the changes have occurred or where problems have occurred. Active Monitoring ensures that everything is not changed through the monitoring system, while passive monitoring determines where system errors occur through the monitoring system. Unfortunately, most monitoring is passive, and passive monitoring is the only form that some professionals know. Only a small number of IT professionals sometimes or actively monitor resources.

However, taking the initiative to monitor the system can reduce a lot of passive monitoring work. For example, if your users complain about poor system performance (the primary concern of passive monitoring), you cannot know how much degradation the system is, unless you can compare the previous monitoring results. Recording such monitoring results is called "forming a system benchmark ". That is to say, you have been monitoring system performance for a while in a low, normal, and high load environment. If you perform frequent sampling, you can determine the system's typical performance under various loads. Therefore, when you report performance problems, you can sample the system and compare the reported results with the benchmark. If your historical data is detailed enough, you can see at a glance which part of the system has changed.

 

This article is excerpted from the book "high-availability MYSQL: building a robust data center ".

Book details: http://blog.csdn.net/broadview2006/article/details/6856131