The oview tool displays the topology of SGI 3000 series and SGI 2000 series of systems with dynamic updates for performance information about CPUs, nodes, and routers. It is a 3D Open Inventor graphical tool for Performance Co-Pilot (PCP). oview behaves differently and produces different views for SGI 3000 series and SGI 2000 series systems. See the oview(1) man page for additional details.

By default, oview operates in `live' mode, fetching the topology and the metrics from the local host in real-time. oview may fetch the metrics from any host which is running the PCP collector software, or from a PCP archive. When fetching metrics from an archive, oview operates in `archive' mode where the user can interactively control the current replay rate and time using a VCR paradigm. This is particularly useful for retrospective comparisons and for post-mortem analysis of performance problems where a remote system is not accessible or a performance analyst is not available on-site.

Other PCP tools may be launched from oview so that specific areas of interest from the performance perspective can be explored in more detail (see the “The Launch Menu”).

The oview window is shown in Figure 1-1 and Figure 1-2. It is comprised of a menu bar, time and scale controls, metric and time values, and an `examiner' Inventor viewer which displays the 3D scene described in the “Topology” section.

Figure 1-1 shows a view of an SGI 3000 series system with one CPU selected as discussed in the “Metric Selection” section. Systems with up-to 128 CPUs can be displayed.

Figure 1-2 shows a view of an SGI 2000 series system as generated by the oview tool.

The Menu Bar options are described in the following sections:

The components of the display that are specific to oview are described in the following sections:

The `?' button on the right-hand edge of the window may be used to display generic help on how to use the Inventor viewer.

The terminology used for the various text boxes and buttons below the Menu Bar is explained in Figure 1-3.