Here at SnapShooter, we love data. We love moving it around and we love analyzing it to see where we can make our processes and services more efficient. We’ve been working on some new tools lately to allow you to see some of your server’s key performance indicators while you run a SnapShooter backup.
Running a backup takes server resources: namely CPU cycles, RAM and networking bandwidth. Being able to know how much and when these resources are used is a critical piece of data - and we have added this data right to our SnapShooter platform.
When you run a backup, you can now monitor your server CPU, backup CPU and CPU steal while your SnapShooter process is running. In addition to CPU information, you can view your server’s memory usage while your backup runs.
Why is this important? If your server is utilizing too much CPU during a backup, that means resources are being taken away from other running processes on the machine. You don’t want to rob Peter to pay Paul, so to speak, as this could impact your service, your customers or even your revenue.
On one hand, seeing a huge CPU spike would you let you know that now may be a good time to increase your server resources. Platforms like EC2 sometimes have burstable CPUs and long periods of high activity could affect you. Depending on how often you are running backups, you may want to move up to a new level of service at AWS or DigitalOcean, if your server lives there.
On the other hand, you may want to take a look at your SnapShooter settings and actually slow down your backups. Out of the box, our code is tuned for performance, and most of the defaults we set work really well on most servers. But every use case is different, so we launched the ability to tune your backup processes in late 2020. You can learn more about it in this post.
We allow you to control your CPU usage, level of compression applied to your backups, set a bandwidth limit and set a cap when it comes to memory usage. If you apply this, you will see your backups use less resources, but remember, tweaking these settings will result in your backups taking longer to generate and move offsite. There’s always a trade-off.
We think you’ll find these new monitoring tools useful. Please check them out on your dashboard, and let us know what you think.