Full Version: Dual Processor Setup
I know that having more than one processors in a machine is hard to take advantage of if your software can't recognise that. I've got a new server with Dual Intel Xeon 2.4 GHz Processors and I was just wondering, firstly how do I know they're both being used and secondly, do I need to make changes to my software to help it recognise them? I'm mostly interested in whether MySQL is taking advantage of them really. The only time I've seen a setting asking how many processors I have was during setting up xcache. Thanks!
Running Linux? RHEL/CentOS v5 makes best use, but even using kernel-smp on v4 & v3 are pretty impressive.
I'm running Red Hat EL5. I'm completely in the dark when it comes to kernels 
. I have these ones installed. Should I install kernel-smp or are these sufficient?
. I have these ones installed. Should I install kernel-smp or are these sufficient?QUOTE
kernel-devel-2.6.18-92.1.17.el5
kernel-2.6.18-92.1.17.el5
kernel-2.6.18-53.el5
kernel-devel-2.6.18-53.el5
kernel-headers-2.6.18-92.1.17.el5
kernel-2.6.18-92.1.17.el5
kernel-2.6.18-53.el5
kernel-devel-2.6.18-53.el5
kernel-headers-2.6.18-92.1.17.el5
In RHEL5 I believe they did away with the seperate smp kernel versions (probably because most servers are at least running duocores now.)
In top type the number 1 to toggle the display to show your cpu cores individually
Not utilizing multiple cpus or multiple cpu cores is mostly an issue for desktop systems where one user is using one program -- for a decade now we've seen multiple cpus available and yet much desktop software is still poorly multithreaded even for tasks that could easily be broken up and completed concurrently (e.g. printing a multiple-page document, batch processing images, etc.) Hopefully now that duocores are the standard that will change more rapidly, though there will always be some underutilization as in a single user situation you often have the problem that you can't do task #2 until you know the outcome of task #1.
On a server though, especially a "do everything" LAMP web server, I've found multiple cpus to be well utilized and the way to go for years now. With lots of web server children running not to mention the multitude of other software such as stats, mysql, imap, firewal, ftp daemon, etc. there is a multitude of processes that turn over well to multiple cpu cores naturally and randomly.
In top type the number 1 to toggle the display to show your cpu cores individually
Not utilizing multiple cpus or multiple cpu cores is mostly an issue for desktop systems where one user is using one program -- for a decade now we've seen multiple cpus available and yet much desktop software is still poorly multithreaded even for tasks that could easily be broken up and completed concurrently (e.g. printing a multiple-page document, batch processing images, etc.) Hopefully now that duocores are the standard that will change more rapidly, though there will always be some underutilization as in a single user situation you often have the problem that you can't do task #2 until you know the outcome of task #1.
On a server though, especially a "do everything" LAMP web server, I've found multiple cpus to be well utilized and the way to go for years now. With lots of web server children running not to mention the multitude of other software such as stats, mysql, imap, firewal, ftp daemon, etc. there is a multitude of processes that turn over well to multiple cpu cores naturally and randomly.
Correct, it's part of the standard kernel on CentOS 5 --- no change necessary.
Ah, Thanks alot guys .
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