Which metric is most important to monitor to identify underutilized GPUs in a data center?

To effectively identify underutilized GPUs in a data center, monitoring GPU Core Utilization is crucial. GPU Core Utilization provides insight into the extent to which the processing capabilities of the GPU are being leveraged. High core utilization indicates that the GPU is actively performing computations, while low core utilization suggests it may not be fully utilized, pointing to potential inefficiencies in resource allocation or workloads.

By focusing on core utilization, data center operators can determine if the GPU resources are being effectively used, which is essential for optimizing performance and cost. In contrast, monitoring metrics like network bandwidth utilization, system uptime, or GPU memory usage may provide valuable information about different aspects of the infrastructure but do not directly reflect the active performance of the GPU cores. For instance, high memory usage without corresponding core utilization could indicate that the GPU is not being used effectively, whereas purely monitoring system uptime does not capture workload performance at all. Thus, GPU Core Utilization stands out as the most relevant metric for assessing GPU effectiveness.