System Analysis at Warp Speed





This little OS/2 utility will become a must for your toolbox.
by Bill Stevens

Are you content to just double-click on application of file icons and let your computer do its thing? Or do you crave to know exactly what every thread of each process is doing? Do you just wonder if your system is tapped out, or do you need to know exactly what process is running out of control, sucking up every available cycle?

OS/2 provides a very basic utility called PSTAT. This is a typical IBM tool, it tells you everything you want to know about the processes that are running on your system in excruciating detail, but nothing about what the data means. If you haven't tried it, just type PSTAT at an OS/2 command prompt (be sure that you pipe the output to MORE.

If you are into serious tuning of your OS/2 systems, CPU Monitor Plus from BonAmi Software is the tool to have. This application analyses your system, collects data and reports on the system activity. Installation is a snap. The only decision you have to make is what directory to place the executable files in. CPU Monitor Plus does need to know where to look for your CONFIG.SYS, in case you are using boot manager. For a simple installation, you can tell the setup to install all the files in one directory. If you want a custom installation, you can place executable files, dynamic link libraries, device drivers and help files in separate directories. Setup makes changes both CONFIG.SYS and OS2.INI, but you have the option of disabling these updates.

Once CPU Monitor Plus has been installed, and your system rebooted, the program can be started from the application icon on the desktop, or from a command line.

If information about your system is what you seek, CPU Monitor Plus will report CPU utilization for selected processes and threads, RAM utilization and availability by process, hardware utilization, process and thread priorities and execution status, and child-parent session relationships. Some of you will want to use the control features of the program to selectively halt programs, detect and examine normally invisible programs or dynamically change the execution priority for processes.

The user's guide is very well written, explaining the setup procedure clearly and concisely. the introduction contains sections which explain how OS/2 multitasks, and manages memory. It concludes with a small section on how CPU Monitor gathers data.

CPU Monitor Plus has six predefined displays of information, and two views that can be configured with custom views. The predefined displays will satisfy most users' curiosity, from just the CPU idle time, to process id, thread id, state, priority, and CPU time.

The user controls CPU Monitor Plus either by the pull-down menus or keystrokes (Ctrl key plus a key that defines an action such as Ctrl-2 displays the percent CPU idle time). One of the most useful pull-down action appears on the File menu. It is the LOG action. This action allows the user to select a file to collect statistics and to enable or disable this logging. Logging of data can be especially useful since the text files can then be processed to reveal critical information, such as how much swapping is the system really doing over a period of hours.

Again, the manual explains these functions with enough detail to spark your imagination to use CPU Monitor Plus to identify any performance problems you might be having.

Reporting the status of a system is reason enough to have this utility in your bag of tricks, but CPU Monitor Plus also allows the user to control the system environment. The commands menu provides the controls to modify the processes and threads that OS/2 is running. Got a process that is running in the background and sucking up CPU cycles but does not appear in the Window List so you can cancel it? The KILL command allows you to stop specific processes. CPU Monitor Plus allows a developer to experiment with his program by dynamically changing the priority level of a process or a thread using the PRIORITY command. Changes in system performance can also be observed by SUSPENDing various processes.

As if this was not enough, CPU Monitor Plus also adds tools to monitor RAM utilization, disk activity, and even interrupt processing. The addition of hardware monitoring tools rounds out this product to a degree unequaled by any other product.

This is the foremost tool available to the systems administrator who needs to analyze the systems he is responsible for. The tools are easy enough to use that the administrator does not have to spend huge amounts of time learning the product, and can concentrate on the results.

CPU Monitor Plus is produced by:
 * BonAmi Software Corporation
 * 60 Thoreau Street, Suite 219
 * Concord, MA 01742
 * http://www.bonamisoft.com/
 * 508-371-1997
 * MSRP: $129.00
 * Street price: $79 - $85

''The author, Bill Stevens is founder and President of Stevens Consulting Services, a company specializing in OS/2 WARP, OS/2 WARP Connect, OS/2 WARP Server, and DB2 for OS/2. He is an IBM Certified OS/2 Instructor, IBM Certified LAN Server Instructor, and co-author of Inside OS/2 WARP, a New Riders publication. He can be reached at wsteven@ibm.net.''