CPU utilization is the metric everyone uses to measure a processor's performance. But %CPU is a misleading measure of how busy your processor really is, says Brendan Gregg, senior performance architect at Netflix, in what he calls a "five-minute public service announcement," at the 16th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE).

In his Lightning Talk, "CPU Utilization is Wrong," Brendan explains what CPU utilization means—and doesn't mean—about performance and shares the open source tools he uses to identify reasons for bottlenecks and tune Netflix's systems. He also includes a mysterious case study that's relevant to everyone in 2018.

Watch Brendan's talk to learn how you can use Netflix's methods to determine what your CPUs are really doing to impact performance.

During the UpSCALE Lightning Talks hosted by Opensource.com at the 16th annual Southern California Linux Expo (SCALE) in March 2018, eight presenters shared quick takes on interesting open source topics, projects, and ideas. Watch all of the UpSCALE Lightning Talks on the Opensource.com YouTube channel.