System performance advisor user guide

The usage of the System Performance Advisor (SPA) expert system is described. Documentation of SPA system commands, system variables, diagnostic rules is given. Information on how to run the SPA system is discussed. In addition, an overview of how SPA searches for problems is supplied. The purpose of SPA is to assist a system administrator in system performance management. Generally, system performance management can be described as those activities performed by a system administrator to ensure a computer system is providing as much of its capacity for the use of its users. SPA assists in performing these duties by attempting to locate the source of performance problems and then notifying the system administrator. SPA makes diagnoses about hosts and processes by monitoring current levels of activity and maintaining a history of these activity levels. By comparing historic knowledge of behavior to dynamic (current) knowledge, SPA can detect when a system is experiencing performance problems.