Which of the following best explains the reported issue?

A systems administrator receives reports that several virtual machines in a host are responding slower than expected.

Upon further investigation, the administrator obtains the following output from one of the affected systems:

Which of the following best explains the reported issue?
A . The physical host is running out of CPU resources, leading to insufficient CPU time being allocated to virtual machines.
B . The physical host has enough CPU cores, leading to users running more processes to compensate for the slower response times.
C . The virtual machine has enough CPU cycles, leading to the system use percentage being higher than expected.
D . The virtual machine is running out of CPU resources, leading to users experiencing longer response times.

View Answer

Answer: D

Explanation:

Based on the output from one of the affected systems, the best explanation for the reported issue is that the virtual machine is running out of CPU resources, leading to users experiencing longer response times (D). The output shows that the system use percentage is very high (57.85%), indicating that the virtual machine is using most of its CPU cycles for system processes. This leaves little CPU time for user processes, which results in slower performance. The other explanations are not supported by the output or are contradictory.

References:

[CompTIA Linux+ Study Guide], Chapter 8: Optimizing Linux Performance, Section: Monitoring CPU Usage

[How to Interpret CPU Usage Statistics]