Performance Co-Pilot (PCP) was created in 1992 at Silicon Graphics (SGI) as a system performance monitoring framework. The project was designed to provide performance monitoring for SGI systems. After SGI open-sourced PCP in 2011, it has become a key performance monitoring tool for Linux systems. The name “Performance Co-Pilot” reflects its purpose: assisting with performance monitoring and analysis.
PCP was created at Silicon Graphics in 1992. The motivation came from:
- System Performance: Need for performance monitoring
- SGI Systems: IRIX operating system monitoring
- Enterprise Tools: Professional-grade monitoring
- Scalability: Handle large SGI systems
Initial Design Goals:
- Comprehensive metrics collection
- Scalable architecture
- Real-time monitoring
- Historical data storage
- Professional tools
PCP was open-sourced in 2011 under the LGPL license. The release featured:
- Full PCP framework
- Performance metrics
- Monitoring tools
- Linux support
- Community development
| Year |
Version |
Milestone |
| 1992 |
1.0 |
Created at SGI |
| 1995 |
2.0 |
Enhanced features |
| 2000 |
3.0 |
IRIX improvements |
| 2005 |
3.5 |
Linux port begins |
| 2011 |
- |
Open-sourced by SGI |
| 2012 |
3.6 |
First open-source release |
| 2013 |
3.7 |
Enhanced Linux support |
| 2014 |
3.8 |
Improved scalability |
| 2015 |
3.9 |
Modern features |
| 2016 |
3.10 |
Enhanced tools |
| 2017 |
3.11 |
Security improvements |
| 2018 |
4.0 |
Major release |
| 2019 |
4.1 |
Enhanced features |
| 2020 |
5.0 |
Major release, modern architecture |
| 2021 |
5.1 |
Bug fixes, stability |
| 2022 |
5.2 |
Enhanced features |
| 2023 |
5.3 |
Security updates |
| 2024 |
5.4 |
Modern improvements |
| 2025 |
5.5 |
Enhanced features |
| 2026 |
5.6.x |
Current stable release |
Initial PCP architecture:
- IRIX System: SGI operating system
- Performance Metrics: Comprehensive metrics
- Proprietary: SGI internal tool
- Enterprise Grade: Professional monitoring
- Scalable: Handle large systems
After open-sourcing:
- Linux Support: Full Linux compatibility
- Enhanced Tools: Modern monitoring tools
- Grafana Integration: Visualization integration
- Cloud Support: Cloud monitoring
- Container Support: Docker, Kubernetes
Red Hat became a major PCP contributor:
- Fedora Integration: Included in Fedora
- RHEL Support: Red Hat Enterprise Linux
- Enterprise Features: Enhanced capabilities
- Community Development: Active community
- Open Development: Public GitHub repository
- Regular Releases: Frequent updates
- Community Input: Feature requests
- Enterprise Focus: Enterprise-grade features
PCP’s PMDA (Performance Metrics Domain Agent) architecture enabled extensive monitoring:
- System PMDAs: CPU, memory, disk, network
- Application PMDAs: Database, web server monitoring
- Cloud PMDAs: AWS, Azure, GCP
- Container PMDAs: Docker, Kubernetes
PCP gained enterprise adoption:
- Linux Distributions: Fedora, RHEL, Debian, Ubuntu
- Enterprise: Production deployments
- Cloud: Cloud infrastructure monitoring
- HPC: High-performance computing
Common PCP deployments:
- System Performance: Comprehensive performance monitoring
- Capacity Planning: Resource planning
- Troubleshooting: Performance analysis
- Historical Analysis: Long-term trends
- GitHub Stars: 1,000+
- Contributors: 100+
- Downloads: Millions of installations (via distros)
- Community: Active enterprise community
- Development: Active development
- Regular feature releases
- Security patches
- Bug fixes
- New PMDAs
- Cloud Integration: Enhanced cloud monitoring
- Container Support: Better Kubernetes support
- Performance: Improved efficiency
- Security: Enhanced access controls
- Integration: More third-party tools
Any questions?
Feel free to contact us. Find all contact information on our contact page.