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Reasonable Use of a VPS?
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Reasonable Use of a VPS?

MTUser2012MTUser2012 Member
edited April 2013 in General

Using the statistics in top for reference, is it a reasonable use of a VPS if it runs at close 100% cpu load the whole time?

Would the answer change if you were a host, not the owner of the VPS?

If you would prefer to answer in CPU units in the Solus Panel, what is reasonable, 40, 80, 120?

Comments

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    Well, unless stated oposite - the CPU cores are shared and atleast we do not allow 24/7 bursting of 100%, as it would impact the other user's performance as well. Pretty sure it is the same with other providers as well.

  • I don't think it's reasonable to use 100% of any resource on a shared system, regardless if i'm a customer or a provider.

    @MTUser2012 said: If you would prefer to answer in CPU units in the Solus Panel, what is reasonable, 40, 80, 120?

    Wat? That's not how the "cpuunits" value works; it's a percentage of the CPU time versus all of the other clients on the server. Setting everyone's cpuunits to the same value ensures that everyone gets fair share of the CPU.

    http://openvz.org/Resource_shortage#cpuunits

  • SPSP Member

    I don't think it is unreasonable to say your are using 100% of the CPU on it's own. I think where you get sticky is when you talk about WHY you are using 100% of the CPU the whole time you have the VPS. If that reason violates the TOS or the AUP, then yes; you are being unreasonable.

  • I read the link. So are you saying the cpuunits that I see in the panel, the graph that I can view through statistics, means nothing in an absolute sense, so I cannot compare cpuunits on one server to another? So it useless to talk of server load on a VPS in terms of cpuunits?

    @Damian said: Wat? That's not how the "cpuunits" value works; it's a percentage of the CPU time versus all of the other clients on the server. Setting everyone's cpuunits to the same value ensures that everyone gets fair share of the CPU.

    http://openvz.org/Resource_shortage#cpuunits

  • Good point. Yes, I am only asking about use that is within TOS in terms of legality etc, a normal website that is just extremely busy.

    @Sperryman said: I don't think it is unreasonable to say your are using 100% of the CPU on it's own. I think where you get sticky is when you talk about WHY you are using 100% of the CPU the whole time you have the VPS. If that reason violates the TOS or the AUP, then yes; you are being unreasonable.

  • @MTUser2012 said: I read the link. So are you saying the cpuunits that I see in the panel, the graph that I can view through statistics, means nothing in an absolute sense, so I cannot compare cpuunits on one server to another?

    Which graph are you referring to?

    @MTUser2012 said: So it useless to talk of server load on a VPS in terms of cpuunits?

    Yes. It's not a quantifier, it's a divisor.

  • Thanks.

    Perhaps this gets at the root of my lack of understanding. I am thinking that top, when it shows me 100% cpu use, is telling me that I am using 100% CPU of my share of CPU resources available to my VPS. Is that right?

    If it isn't, it is the case that a VPS that is using 100% of CPU resources as shown in top is using 100% of all available resources on the server, well then of course I would believe that is unreasonable in a shared environment.

    If it is that is the case top 100% equals 100% use of the server cpu, how do you figure out what is reasonable if a VPS runs with a high load most of the time?

    @Alex_LiquidHost said: Well, unless stated oposite - the CPU cores are shared and at least we do not allow 24/7 bursting of 100%, as it would impact the other user's performance as well. Pretty sure it is the same with other providers as well.

  • @Damian said: Which graph are you referring to?

    !(http://i1292.photobucket.com/albums/b570/MTUser2012/ModifiedSSServerLoad_zpsfe776300.png)

    SS from Solus Panel. Sorry, I am not sure how to post the image directly.

  • DamianDamian Member
    edited April 2013

    That's not CPU units. That's load average.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_(computing)

    Another way of putting it: in that chart, your VPS was using an amount of processing power that would only be able to be handled by 66 CPU cores.

  • @MTUser2012 said: SS from Solus Panel. Sorry, I am not sure how to post the image directly.

    You've got a consistent load of 60.00+, I would assume that to be unreasonable with any provider.

  • Holy crap. What provider is tolerating that from you :P

    I would say there could be an underlying issue on the physical hardware right there. I cant see your VPS causing all that. Probably I/O related.

  • AlexBarakovAlexBarakov Patron Provider, Veteran

    @Ash

    I am also quite sure it is IO related, I've recentely observed such loads on one node that was resyncing it's RAID.

  • @ Ash & @Alex

    So are you guys saying that this problem with load is probably not me ( my site), but some defect in the I/O for the server?

    If so, what would you recommend? Contact my host and gently, and politely suggest that I/O might be the issue here?

    I want to solve problems and be a helpful, appreciative customer, not a resource hog.

  • Ash_HawkridgeAsh_Hawkridge Member
    edited April 2013

    @MTUser2012

    100%, if they aren't contacting you regarding that load, they aren't monitoring there systems properly regardless.

    Unless something such as a RAID resync is in progress (they usually happen on Sundays by default and can continue till Monday/Tuesday dependent on the server load) then i would say there is certaintly an underlying problem that's out of your control.

    A sure fire way to establish this would be to reboot your VPS (If possible) and check the load after, if its still at those levels, there is a big problem. Either an abusive user on your node or a hardware issue, eitherway i would be worried that your host doesn't know about it.

    If you contact them, just attach the graphs from SolusVM. Try the reboot before hand to make sure it isn't you causing it, but i doubt it is.

  • dmmcintyre3dmmcintyre3 Member
    edited April 2013

    @GetKVM_Ash said: Try the reboot before hand to make sure it isn't you causing it, but i doubt it is.

    What would a reboot do? If the user has his VM properly configured everything that is causing the load would just be restarted.

  • There are plenty of cases of processes just locking up, a reboot would solve this if that was the case.

  • Open a support ticket with the provider to look into this for you.

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran
    edited April 2013

    If top shows high wa in %, then it can be from storage, for example we have a failed drive in a raid and it has some io wait, but nothing to cause that load.
    We will move everyone out tonight not to risk anything since it is the same make with the other two we had in the past month.
    From the look of it it is some process which went wrong, possibly a named used for amplification in a DDoS attack since you say it is used for hosting.
    I have seen that pretty often, lately, people do not stop using recursive DNSs...

  • Whether you can use 100% of a resource or not depends on if that resource is dedicated or shared.

    So for example, on a VPS with shared CPU, no it would not be reasonable to use 100%. However, when it comes to a resource like disk space that is dedicated then yes it is reasonable to use 100%.

    tl;dr

    is it shared? then no.
    is it dedicated? then yes.

  • I use roughly 80% at CHVPS. It's been a good 4 months 24/7 now I think. No complaints yet lol.

  • jhjh Member

    Remember there's a scheduler as well, and if just your server was picked up (and from our emails) I think the problem is contained to your server. That said, of course if doesn't hurt putting a ticket in asking them to check everything's ok.

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