Nexus 5020 CPU Spikes

[robert.horrigan]

The CPU spikes for a few seconds every 5 minutes on all of my 5Ks.  Has anyone seen this in their deployment? Is this normal?  Is there a fix?  I appreciate any feed back.

    1111    1 1 2211 12131111221 111112 1121112111 7011 1   111
    295698333939219863173646806576787735871757299362098548422279
100                                                 #
90                                                 #
80                                                 #
70                                                ##
60                                                ##
50                                                ##
40                                                ##
30                     #     #                    ##
20  ###        ####  #### ##### ###### #########  ####       #
10 ######  ##############################################  ####
    0....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5....5....
              0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5

               CPU% per second (last 60 seconds)
                      # = average CPU%

         1          1          1          1          1
    211110111111111101111212112011122111110111111111102132222333
    065490536536664607879040931065621497560767476633500506486301
100      *          *          *          *          *
90      *          *          *          *          *
80      *          *          *          *          *
70      *          *          *          *          *
60      *          *          *          *          *
50      *          *          *          *          *
40      *          *          *          *          *
30      *          *          *          *          *  ** *****
20 *** *** ** *** ******* ** ******* ******** ***  *********###
10 *****#**********#**********#**********#****##****###########
    0....5....1....1....2....2....3....3....4....4....5....5....
              0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5    0    5

               CPU% per minute (last 60 minutes)
              * = maximum CPU%   # = average CPU%

[Prashanth Krishnappa · Accepted solution]

Yes this is normal as part of house keeping jobs and does not affect any traffic flowing through the switch.

[robert.horrigan]

Thanks for the response.  I'm glad this is normal.  Would you happen to have any documentation on this?

[habadr]

Hi,

I recommend using "sh system resources" which will report better CPU utilization

Thanks

Hatim

[Lucien Avramov]

Nexus utilizes the CPU differently than catalyst and it's a cut trough switch. Even with 100% CPU, your traffic won't be affected since it's processed by the hardware.

On a side note, you will see with the # on this diagram the average utilization and that is very low.

There is no documentation as far as what the CPU should be, it depends on case by case with the configuration and tasks that are happening on the device.