Applies To: Distributed Systems (Hadoop, Spark, etc.), Standalone Servers
Category: Troubleshooting → Performance, Resource Management
Issue Summary
A single node within a cluster or a standalone server is experiencing disproportionately high CPU, memory, or disk I/O utilization, leading to performance bottlenecks, instability, or even node failure.
Possible Cause(s)
List common reasons why this issue may occur.
Workload imbalance: A specific application or job is preferentially scheduled on or is generating excessive load on that node.
Misconfigured services: A service on the node is misconfigured, leading to resource leaks or inefficient operation.
Hardware issues: Underlying hardware problems (e.g., failing disk, faulty RAM) leading to performance degradation.
Background processes: Uncontrolled background processes (e.g., backups, indexing, monitoring agents) consume resources.
Network bottlenecks: Heavy network traffic specifically routing through or terminating on that node.
Step-by-Step Resolution
1. Identify Resource logs:
To identify processes consuming the most CPU, memory, or I/O.
top
To identify the detailed disk I/O statistics.
iostat -dx 1
2. Check the Node Manager is up and running it down, start it.
yarn node -list
3. Check Configuration:
Review the configuration files for the high-resource processes/services on that node. Look for non-standard settings or resource limits.
Additional Notes:
Implement robust monitoring (e.g., Prometheus, Grafana, Nagios) to track resource usage on all nodes and receive alerts for anomalies.
Regularly review cluster health and job execution patterns to detect imbalances early.