I'm using Monit to keep an eye on my Amazon EC2 Micro instances, but I'm a little confused about the Load Average CPU metrics because of the Micro instances' ability to use up to 2ECU for short times. Monit is often reporting a Load Average (1 min) of 4 or 5 but I don't really know if this is actually high or not.
As I understand it my usage profile is well suited to the Micro instance although there are some spikes to 100% CPU usage and these roughly coincide with the Monit alerts.
Could someone explain what would be normal Load Average for a Micro instance and at what stage I should start to be concerned about it?
Best Answer
beware that, in the case of EC2, top is not a reliable tool to measure CPU usage. See more info at http://www.axibase.com/cloud/2010/07/22/ec2-monitoring-the-case-of-stolen-cpu/