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AWS CloudWatch
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VMs / EC2 High Page Faults

The system is experiencing a high number of page faults.

Understanding Prometheus and Its Purpose

Prometheus is an open-source systems monitoring and alerting toolkit originally built at SoundCloud. It is designed to record real-time metrics in a time-series database, with flexible queries and real-time alerting. Prometheus is widely used for monitoring cloud environments, including VMs and EC2 instances, to ensure optimal performance and resource utilization.

Symptom: High Page Faults

One of the alerts you might encounter when using Prometheus to monitor your VMs or EC2 instances is High Page Faults. This alert indicates that the system is experiencing a high number of page faults, which can impact performance.

What Are Page Faults?

Page faults occur when a program tries to access data that is not currently in physical memory (RAM). When this happens, the operating system must retrieve the data from disk storage, which is a much slower process. High page fault rates can lead to increased latency and reduced application performance.

Types of Page Faults

  • Minor Page Faults: These occur when the data is not in the current working set but is still in memory, just not in the expected location.
  • Major Page Faults: These occur when the data must be fetched from disk, which is more costly in terms of time and resources.

Steps to Fix High Page Faults

To address high page faults, you need to investigate memory usage patterns and optimize applications. Here are some actionable steps:

1. Monitor Memory Usage

Use tools like AWS CloudWatch or Grafana to monitor memory usage over time. Look for patterns that might indicate inefficient memory usage.

2. Optimize Application Code

Review your application code to ensure it is optimized for memory usage. Consider the following:

  • Use efficient data structures that minimize memory overhead.
  • Implement caching strategies to reduce repeated data fetching.
  • Profile your application to identify memory leaks or inefficient memory usage.

3. Adjust VM/EC2 Instance Type

If your application consistently requires more memory than your current instance type provides, consider upgrading to a larger instance type with more RAM. This can be done through the AWS Management Console or using the AWS CLI:

aws ec2 modify-instance-attribute --instance-id i-1234567890abcdef0 --instance-type m5.large

4. Implement Swap Space

While not ideal, adding swap space can help mitigate the impact of page faults by providing additional virtual memory. This can be done by creating a swap file on your instance:

sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
sudo chmod 600 /swapfile
sudo mkswap /swapfile
sudo swapon /swapfile

Ensure that swap is used as a temporary solution and not a substitute for adequate physical memory.

Conclusion

High page faults can significantly impact the performance of your VMs or EC2 instances. By monitoring memory usage, optimizing application code, adjusting instance types, and implementing swap space, you can effectively reduce page faults and improve system performance. For more detailed information, refer to the Prometheus Documentation.

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