Netapp's CPU utilization monitoring - the correct way :-)

I was configuring a filer's NDMP backup via a SAN drive and there I came to know the importance of -m option of sysstat command in Netapp's OnTap. During a backup test, I wanted to see the performance of my filer specifically the Tapes I/O. When I saw the output of "sysstat 5", I was little upset with the CPU utilization because it was showing unusually high CPU utilization.

But when I saw the "sysstat -m 5" command's output, which in fact shows each Netapp's CPU's utilization, it was clear that only 1 CPU was maxing out because of backup job leaving others untouched as shown in second command's output.

Therefore, conclustion is, whenever need to see actual CPU utilization in netapp, rely on -m option than any other one.

[adminhost]# rsh filername sysstat 5
 CPU    NFS   CIFS   HTTP      Net kB/s     Disk kB/s      Tape kB/s    Cache
                               in   out     read  write    read write     age
 64%      0      0      0      25   764     8180      6       0  4204     >60
 69%      1      0      0      27   760     8050     51       0  4132     >60
 61%      0      0      0      24   769     7998    400       0  3923     >60
 70%      0      0      0      28   828     8604     10       0  4512     >60
 62%      1      0      0      25   729     8246    415       0  4022     >60
 35%      1      0      0      14   409     4407     11       0  2287     >60
 68%      0      0      0      27   822     8731    391       0  4307     >60
 62%      0      0      0      24   704     8014     11       0  4183     >60
 65%      0      0      0      25   761     8140    396       0  3977     >60


[adminhost]# rsh filername sysstat -m 2
 ANY  AVG  CPU0 CPU1 CPU2 CPU3
100%  32%   13%   9%  14%  92%
 75%  22%    8%   5%   7%  69%
 80%  24%    7%   6%   8%  74%
 73%  22%    7%   6%   8%  67%
 75%  22%    7%   6%   7%  69%
 70%  21%    6%   6%   6%  65%
 69%  21%    8%   6%   6%  63%
 76%  23%    8%   8%   9%  69%
 75%  23%    8%   6%   8%  71%
 62%  18%    5%   5%   5%  56%
 79%  24%    9%   6%   9%  72%
 76%  23%    9%   6%   9%  70%