What metrics not to use
A lot of the time, we assume that some very popular metric would be better to monitor memory performance. However, many a times, it leads to something else. This means that these are not an indication of a memory performance issue. If this metric is combined with something else then it may indicate performance degradation.
In this aspect you should not use two of the most popular metrics just to understand whether memory is under pressure or not:
Mem.consumed
(Consumed Memory)Mem.vmmemctl
(Ballooned Memory)
Let me show you what they essentially indicate.
Mem.consumed
is the amount of memory consumed by one or all virtual machines. This is calculated as memory granted minus memory saved by sharing. Now the question is why we should not use this. The reason is that memory allocation will vary dynamically based on the VM's entitlement. It is important that a VM should get whatever it actually demands.
Similarly, Mem.vmmemctl
is the amount of ballooned memory. This does not...