USE Method

Definitions

1. A methodology for analyzing infrastructure performance: Utilization (how busy the resource is), Saturation (how much work is queued), and Errors (error events). Created by Brendan Gregg. Applied to every resource: CPU (utilization %, run queue depth, hardware errors), memory (used %, swapping, OOM events), disk (IOPS %, I/O queue depth, device errors).

   In plain English: Three questions to ask about every resource: how busy is it, is work piling up, and are there errors?

   Example: "Apply the USE method to the database server: CPU at 90% utilization, 12 queries in the run queue (saturated), zero errors -- it's CPU-bound, not broken."

Related Terms

• Twelve-Factor App
• Allocator
• Big-O
• Cache
• Comptime
• Concurrency
• Frame Rate
• RED Method