The CPU panel displays server-wide statistics as well as statistics for the individual world, resource pool, and virtual machine CPU utilization.

Resource pools, virtual machines that are running, or other worlds are at times called groups. For worlds belonging to a virtual machine, statistics for the virtual machine that is running are displayed. All other worlds are logically aggregated into the resource pools that contain them.

Table 1. CPU Panel Statistics
Line Description
PCPU USED(%)

A PCPU refers to a physical hardware execution context. It can be a physical CPU core if the hyperthreading is unavailable or disabled, or a logical CPU (LCPU or SMT thread) if the hyperthreading is enabled.

PCPU USED(%) displays the following percentages:
  • percentage of CPU usage per PCPU
  • percentage of CPU usage averaged over all PCPUs

CPU Usage (%USED) is the percentage of PCPU nominal frequency that was used since the last screen update. It equals the total sum of %USED for Worlds that ran on this PCPU.

Note: If a PCPU is running at frequency that is higher than its nominal (rated) frequency, then PCPU USED(%) can be greater than 100%.

If a PCPU and its partner are busy when hyperthreading is enabled, each PCPU account for half of the CPU usage.

PCPU UTIL(%) A PCPU refers to a physical hardware execution context. It can be a physical CPU core if the hyperthreading is unavailable or disabled, or a logical CPU (LCPU or SMT thread) if the hyperthreading is enabled.

PCPU UTIL(%) represents the percentage of real time that the PCPU was not idle (raw PCPU utilization). It displays the percentage CPU utilization per PCPU, and the percentage CPU utilization averaged over all PCPUs.

Note: PCPU UTIL(%) might differ from PCPU USED(%) due to power management technologies or hyperthreading.
ID Resource pool ID or virtual machine ID of the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running. Alternatively, the world ID of the world that is running.
GID Resource pool ID of the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running.
NAME Name of the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running, or name of the world that is running.
NWLD Number of members in the resource pool or virtual machine of the world that is running. If a Group is expanded using the interactive command e, then NWLD for all the resulting worlds is 1.
%STATE TIMES Set of CPU statistics made up of the following percentages. For a world, the percentages are a percentage of one physical CPU core.
%USED

Percentage of physical CPU core cycles used by the resource pool, virtual machine, or world. %USED might depend on the frequency with which the CPU core is running. When running with lower CPU core frequency, %USED can be smaller than %RUN. On CPUs which support the turbo mode, CPU frequency can also be higher than the nominal (rated) frequency, and %USED can be larger than %RUN.

%USED = %RUN + %SYS - %OVRLP

%SYS

Percentage of time spent in the ESXi VMkernel on behalf of the resource pool, virtual machine, or world to process interrupts and to perform other system activities. This time is part of the time used to calculate %USED.

%USED = %RUN + %SYS - %OVRLP

%WAIT

Percentage of time the resource pool, virtual machine, or world spent in the blocked or busy wait state. This percentage includes the percentage of time the resource pool, virtual machine, or world was idle.

100% = %RUN + %RDY + %CSTP + %WAIT

%VMWAIT The total percentage of time the Resource Pool/World spent in a blocked state waiting for events.
%IDLE Percentage of time the resource pool, virtual machine, or world was idle. Subtract this percentage from %WAIT to see the percentage of time the resource pool, virtual machine, or world was waiting for some event. The difference, %WAIT- %IDLE, of the VCPU worlds can be used to estimate guest I/O wait time. To find the VCPU worlds, use the single-key command e to expand a virtual machine and search for the world NAME starting with "vcpu". (The VCPU worlds might wait for other events in addition to I/O events, so this measurement is only an estimate.)
%RDY Percentage of time the resource pool, virtual machine, or world was ready to run, but was not provided CPU resources on which to execute.

100% = %RUN + %RDY + %CSTP + %WAIT

%MLMTD (max limited) Percentage of time the ESXi VMkernel deliberately did not run the resource pool, virtual machine, or world because doing so would violate the resource pool, virtual machine, or world's limit setting. Because the resource pool, virtual machine, or world is ready to run when it is prevented from running in this way, the %MLMTD (max limited) time is included in %RDY time.
%SWPWT Percentage of time a resource pool or world spends waiting for the ESXi VMkernel to swap memory. The %SWPWT (swap wait) time is included in the %WAIT time.
EVENT COUNTS/s Set of CPU statistics made up of per second event rates. These statistics are for VMware internal use only.
CPU ALLOC Set of CPU statistics made up of the following CPU allocation configuration parameters.
AMIN Resource pool, virtual machine, or world attribute Reservation.
AMAX Resource pool, virtual machine, or world attribute Limit. A value of -1 means unlimited.
ASHRS Resource pool, virtual machine, or world attribute Shares.
SUMMARY STATS Set of CPU statistics made up of the following CPU configuration parameters and statistics. These statistics apply only to worlds and not to virtual machines or resource pools.
AFFINITY BIT MASK Bit mask showing the current scheduling affinity for the world.
HTSHARING Current hyperthreading configuration.
CPU The physical or logical processor on which the world was running when resxtop (or esxtop) obtained this information.
HTQ Indicates whether the world is quarantined or not. N means no and Y means yes.
TIMER/s Timer rate for this world.
%OVRLP

Percentage of system time spent during scheduling of a resource pool, virtual machine, or world on behalf of a different resource pool, virtual machine, or world while the resource pool, virtual machine, or world was scheduled. This time is not included in %SYS. For example, if virtual machine A is being scheduled and a network packet for virtual machine B is processed by the ESXi VMkernel, the time spent appears as %OVRLP for virtual machine A and %SYS for virtual machine B.

%USED = %RUN + %SYS - %OVRLP

%RUN

Percentage of total time scheduled. This time does not account for hyperthreading and system time. On a hyperthreading enabled server, the %RUN can be twice as large as %USED.

%USED = %RUN + %SYS - %OVRLP

100% = %RUN + %RDY + %CSTP + %WAIT

%CSTP

Percentage of time a resource pool spends in a ready, co-deschedule state.

Note: You might see this statistic displayed, but it is intended for VMware use only.

100% = %RUN + %RDY + %CSTP + %WAIT

POWER Current CPU power consumption for a resource pool (in Watts).
%LAT_C Percentage of time the resource pool or world was ready to run but was not scheduled to run because of CPU resource contention.
%LAT_M Percentage of time the resource pool or world was ready to run but was not scheduled to run because of memory resource contention.
%DMD CPU demand in percentage. It represents the average active CPU load in the past minute.
CORE UTIL(%)

Percentage of CPU cycles per core when at least one of the PCPUs in this core is unhalted, and its average over all cores.

This statistic only appears when hyperthreading is enabled.

In batch mode, the corresponding CORE UTIL(%) statistic is displayed for each PCPU. For example, PCPU 0 and PCPU 1 have the same the CORE UTIL(%) number, and that is the number for core 0.

You can change the display using single-key commands.

Table 2. CPU Panel Single-Key Commands
Command Description
e

Toggles whether CPU statistics are displayed expanded or unexpanded.

The expanded display includes CPU resource utilization statistics broken down by individual worlds belonging to a resource pool or virtual machine. All percentages for the individual worlds are percentage of a single physical CPU.

Consider these examples:
  • If the %Used by a resource pool is 30% on a two-way server, the resource pool is utilizing 30 percent of one physical core.
  • If the %Used by a world belonging to a resource pool is 30 percent on a two-way server, that world is utilizing 30% of one physical core.
U Sorts resource pools, virtual machines, and worlds by the resource pool’s or virtual machine’s %Used column. This is the default sort order.
R Sorts resource pools, virtual machines, and worlds by the resource pool’s or virtual machine’s %RDY column.
N Sorts resource pools, virtual machines, and worlds by the GID column.
V Displays virtual machine instances only.
L Changes the displayed length of the NAME column.