B.1  Performance and Resource Usage

Whenever SEA starts, and when you run manual analysis, the program appears to use a lot of system resources and processor cycles. However, SEA uses only the capacity that is not being asked for by other programs.

SEA always relinquishes processor cycles to other programs whenever they need them. In other words, the program uses whatever resources are available.

At startup SEA needs the available capacity for the scavenge process. Depending on the system, and the size and content of the log, the initial startup pass can take many minutes or even hours to complete. The initial analysis occurs only once, four minutes after the Director has been started. Subsequent restarts of the Director should not result in significant CPU usage except for the normal startup tasks, which may take from 10 to 30 seconds. After completing the scavenge process, SEA drops into idle mode, where resource usage hovers at only a few percent.

If you run SEA in manual mode, large amounts of system resources and processor cycles might also get used. As in the case of startup in automatic mode, the condition is directly related to the size and content of the log being processed. Once again, by design, SEA uses as many resources as are available until processing is completed.

For more information on controlling SEA's memory usage, refer to Section 7.7.4.