Built-In Layouts - General

The built-in general layout can be loaded at any time by selecting it with Layout → BuiltIn → General. It covers core server information and performance metrics, together with event logs, services and processes. It is divided into nine frames, with some frames containing multiple panels. Where appropriate, it is possible to drill down from one panel to another that shows more detail. The general layout covers a broad range of system information suitable for a typical server, but can be modified if required.

Note that it is possible to override the built-in layouts that ship with the product.

Dashboard

The dashboard frame displays instantaneous values for processor, memory and disk activity metrics, giving a high-level overview of system activity.

For the processor, the overall CPU load is further split into user- and privileged-mode load, and also shows the highest load on a single core and the overall queue length. The single core load is useful for identifying a run-away process on a multi-processor system. For disks, the values shown are for the maximum across all physical disks, and so will include activity on disks that do not have a drive letter mapped to them. Each gauge supports drill-down to panels that give a more detailed view of each area of system activity.

The system information includes IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, but excludes any loopback or link-local addresses.

Activity Summary

The activity summary frame shows charts for key activity indicators, and can be used as a first step when diagnosing slow performance or other bottlenecks. Drill-downs from each chart show relevant information in more detail.

The Disk Activity chart is for total activity across all physical disks, and so will include activity on disks that do not have a drive letter mapped to them.

Processor

The processor frame focuses on overall processing, details for each individual core and the server work queues.

The CPU Utilisation chart on the CPUs panel shows the load on each core in the system, but is scaled by the total number of cores. Therefore, on a multi-core system, no individual processor will ever show 100% utilisation. For example, an individual core running at 100% utilisation would be displayed at 25% utilisation on a four-core system. The overall height of the combined values for all cores gives a visual indication of the total load across all cores.

Memory

The memory frame provides a summary of physical and virtual memory usage, paging and cache activity.

The limits on the summary panel are the physical memory installed in the computer and the available virtual memory. The Memory Usage chart will only show memory used by any virtual machines if a supported hypervisor is installed.

Note that the Page Faults chart on the paging panel shows total faults, both hard and soft, whereas the Paging chart on the summary panel and the Paging Activity chart on the paging panel only relate to hard faults, so a discrepancy between the values shown is to be expected. A hard page fault occurs when a referenced page is not located in physical memory and requires physical I/O to resolve. A soft page fault occurs when the page is resident elsewhere in memory, and does not result in any physical I/O.

Disk

The disk frame includes, for each disk, key data transfer and operation rates, together with a measure of overall load. Separate panels cover logical and physical disks.

Network

The network frame shows data volumes sent and received over the network, with individual panels for IPv4 and IPv6 processing. For the Packets By Network Card chart, note that some of the available network interface instances might have been automatically excluded.

Event Logs

The event logs frame lists entries in the System, Security and Application event logs. The first three panels have filters in place to limit the events to those that typically indicate problems, and the next three include all events. See Event Logs for information on viewing the details of an individual event and on the interactive filtering that can be applied to the event lists.

Services

The services frame lists installed services, the first panel showing all installed services and two further panels limiting the lists to active and failed services respectively. A failed service is one that is configured for automatic start-up but that is not currently running. See Services for details on the starting, stopping and restarting services.

Processes

The processes frame lists the running processes. Selecting a process from the list will populate the thread list with details of the individual threads for that process. See Processes for details on terminating processes and changing their priority.