If you are familiar with the network when it is fully operational, you can be more effective at troubleshooting problems that arise. To understand the normal behavior of the network, monitor the network over a long period of time. During this time you can see a pattern in the traffic flow, such as which devices users access most or when peak usage times occur.
To identify problems, you can use a baseline analysis, which is an important indicator of overall network health. A baseline serves as a useful reference of network traffic during normal operation, which you can then compare to captured network traffic while you troubleshoot network problems. A baseline analysis speeds the process of isolating network problems. By running tests on a healthy network, you compile normal data for your network. You can compare this normal data against the results that you get when the network experiences trouble.
For example, ping each node to discover how long it typically takes to receive a response from devices on your network. Capture and save each response time and you can use these baseline response times to help you troubleshoot. You can also use the show tech/show fulltech and show khi performance {buffer-pool|cpu|memory|process|pthread|slabinfo} commands to obtain baseline output for normal system behavior.
In the following example, the show khi performance memory command shows the average memory utilization at various time intervals. The show khi performance memory history command shows the VMSize utilization values in kilobytes for each process at various time intervals. After 1 hour elapses, the system stores this information in /intflash/coreFiles/slot/khi_mem_log.
Switch:1>show khi performance memory 1
Slot:1
Used: 6259174 (KB)
Free: 1933970 (KB)
Current utilization: 76 %
5-minute average utilization: 76 %
5-minute high water mark: 80 (%)
10-minute average utilization: 76 %
10-minute high water mark: 80 (%)
1-Hour average utilization: 76 %
1-Hour high water mark: 79 (%)
1-Day average utilization: 76 %
1-Month average utilization: 0 %
1-Year average utilization: 0 %
SMLT socket buffer memory usage 0 KB on 0 blocks
Switch:1>show khi performance memory history
Slot:1
Values indicate VMSize in KB
Pid Pname 5-Min 10-Min 1-Hour 1-Day 1-Month 1-Year
1733 logger 2 2 2 2 -- --
1751 namServer 24 24 24 24 -- --
1752 sockserv 5 5 5 5 -- --
1754 oom95 106 106 106 106 -- --
1755 oom90 106 106 106 106 -- --
1756 imgsync.x 25 25 25 25 -- --
1831 logServer 29 29 29 29 -- --
1832 trcServer 23 23 23 23 -- --
1834 oobServer 23 23 23 23 -- --
1836 nickServer 24 24 24 24 -- --
1837 nickClient 24 24 24 24 -- --
2451 dhclient-fan -- -- -- -- -- --
1840 hwsServer 29 29 29 29 -- --
1843 redis-server 20 20 20 19 -- --
2551 restweb_voss.pyz 33 33 33 32 -- --
2559 hiveagent 10 10 10 9 -- --
1844 cbcp-main.x 626 626 623 618 -- --
--More-- (q = quit)