CPU Usage | Kafka Documentation

The CPU Usage metric group contains metrics regarding the CPU utilisation of the cluster. The metrics available are:

• CPU Usage
• OS Load: Average

CPU Usage

The CPU Usage metric shows the percentage of CPU being utilised. Consistently high CPU usage combined with plateauing throughput (i.e. number of messages received per second) may indicate that your cluster has reached its performance capacity. If your CPU Usage is consistently high you may need to increase the capacity of your cluster. This can be achieved by either adding new nodes to the cluster or upgrading the individual nodes in the cluster. 

Expected value: less than 100%

OS Load

The OS Load metric shows the average OS load of the nodes in the cluster. Generally, a node is overloaded if the OS Load is greater than or equal to the number of cores on the node. An OS load that is temporarily greater than the number of cores on the node is normal, and indicates that the node was temporarily overloaded but managed to recover. If your OS load is consistently high you may need to increase the capacity of your cluster. This can be achieved by either adding new nodes to the cluster or upgrading the individual nodes in the cluster. 

Expected value: less than the number of cores on the node.