How to Calculate CPU Utilization

Lance Harvie
4 min readSep 25, 2023

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CPU Utilization Formula

An efficient CPU utilization is essential for any server system — whether it is a web application, a database, or a virtual machine. Knowing how to calculate the CPU utilization of your server helps you ensure that your server is running at optimal performance levels and can pinpoint any potential bottlenecks that could be causing issues. In this article, we’ll look at how to calculate CPU utilization and what you should do if your server’s utilization is too high. Read on to learn more about the importance of monitoring your CPU utilization and how to accurately measure it.

Understanding CPU Utilization

CPU utilization is a measure of the amount of time that a processor spends actively working. It can be measured in percentages, with 100 percent representing the total capacity of the processor. The higher the percentage, the more tasks your processor can handle at once. When your CPU utilization is too high, it means that your processor is maxed out and unable to keep up with all of the processes it needs to run. This leads to slowdowns in performance and can even cause system crashes.

When monitoring your system’s CPU utilization, you should aim for an average utilization of around 70% or lower. Any higher than this may indicate an issue that needs to be addressed — either by optimizing code or upgrading hardware. Knowing how to calculate CPU utilization will help you maintain an adequate usage level so that your system runs smoothly and efficiently.

How to Calculate CPU Utilization

Calculating CPU utilization is relatively straightforward and there are several tools available to help you do it accurately. The simplest way to calculate it is by using the ‘top’ command in Linux (or Task Manager on Windows). This command will give you a list of all running processes along with their individual CPU usage levels, giving you a good indication of where your system’s resources are being used most heavily.

From this data, you can calculate the overall CPU utilization by adding up all of the process-level usages and dividing them by the total number of cores in your processor (the number should be displayed alongside each process). You can then multiply this figure by 100 to get an accurate percentage value for your overall utilization rate:

Total Process Level Usage / Number Of Cores * 100 = Overall CPU Utilization %

For example, if you had 8 cores and a total process-level usage of 40%, then your overall utilization would be calculated as follows:

40 / 8 * 100 = 500%

If Your Server’s Utilization Is Too High…

If your server’s overall CPU utilization rate is too high — above 70% — then there could be several potential causes for this issue:

1. Poorly optimized code

If any of the code running on your server is inefficiently written then it will take up more resources than necessary when processing requests, leading to higher resource consumption overall. To fix this issue, review any existing code on the server and make sure that they are optimized for better performance.

2. Insufficient hardware

If there are too many tasks being processed at once then it may mean that your server does not have enough computing power to handle them all effectively. In this case, consider upgrading either some or all of the hardware components on your server such as RAM or hard disks if possible.

3. Malware or viruses

Another potential cause for high resource utilization rates could be malware or viruses running in the background without you realizing it. Make sure you regularly scan for these threats using antivirus software and remove any detected issues as soon as possible for improved performance levels across the board.

Conclusion

Knowing how to calculate CPU utilization helps ensure that servers run optimally at all times and prevents potential bottlenecks from forming which can lead to slower processing speeds or even system crashes in extreme cases. By understanding how to calculate this metric accurately with tools such as top (or Task Manager), you can keep tabs on how much strain each component places on systems resources while also keeping an eye out for any potential issues like poorly written code or malware infections which may negatively impact performance levels over time if left unchecked.

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Lance Harvie
Lance Harvie

Written by Lance Harvie

Engineer @ RunTime - Engineering Recruitment — Automotive — Medical — Telecomm — Defense — M2M/IOT — Video/Audio - https://runtimerec.com

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