perfino

Perfino agent overhead


What is the approximate overhead of the Perfino agent in terms of memory and CPU utilization? Would prefer numbers if you have them.

We currently have an evaluation copy hooked up to an order matching application and there is concern that the agent may introduce additional latency into the system.


Solution

  • It is difficult to quantify agent overhead in relative or absolute numbers, because they depend so much on the application that is being monitored and how monitoring is configured.

    In any case, the agent overhead in terms of CPU time is negligible. Agent operations only occur for high-level events like a URL invocation or a database call and only add microseconds of processing time to each such event.

    In terms of memory overhead, the agent can store substantial amounts of data especially for probe data like JDBC statements. However, this is carefully capped and periodically offloaded to the perfino server.