It is important for you, as the DBA, to monitor the operating system. If you are not also the system administrator, you must work closely with your system administrator so that you are aware of any operating system problems.

Ingres relies on the operating system to access data in tables. If the operating system develops problems, such as system resource shortages, lack of free disk space, or hardware errors, this can affect the responsiveness of the Ingres system and its ability to process requests on behalf of its clients.

Disk errors, memory errors, or operating system resource shortages are the problems most likely to affect the quality of operation. Most hardware errors are dependably logged by the operating system. Make sure that the system administrator is aware of your concern about the efficiency of the operating system.

The operating system offers tools to check and verify the health of the hardware. These include disk drive verification programs and diagnostic programs for memory boards.

Windows: Windows lets the system administrator check for and optionally fix problems in a file system. Free disk space and system configuration can be monitored with the Windows Diagnostics. System-wide performance data, such as CPU usage, can be monitored using the Performance Monitor. Certain system-wide errors and events are monitored in the Event Log, which can be viewed with the Event Viewer. For information on these and other administrative tools, see the Windows documentation.

UNIX: Most UNIX vendors have a fsck program to check for unreferenced disk blocks, unreferenced inodes, and inconsistencies in operating system tables. Free disk space in your file systems is easily monitored with operating system tools such as df and du. The pstat (BSD) or sar (System V) UNIX commands have options to show the use and distribution of various operating system resources. Every vendor also provides a variety of system maintenance utilities that are menu-driven and easy to use, but which are generally specific to a particular operating system vendor. Make full use of any operating system tools such as these.

VMS: VMS offers the analyze command which, among other operations, analyzes readability and validity of files and disk volumes. The show device command shows the amount of free disk space. The VMS Monitor Utility (MONITOR) monitors classes of system-wide performance data, such as CPU usage, at a specified interval. These are only a few of the system maintenance utilities that VMS provides. Consult the VMS Help facility and your VMS System Manager for more information on these and other useful operating system tools.