AWS Lightsail instance high CPU usage with "Other" processes

The "Other" CPU usage you're seeing on your AWS Lightsail instance could be related to various factors that aren't easily categorized as typical user or system processes. While Lightsail doesn't provide specific information about what constitutes "Other" CPU usage, there are several steps you can take to investigate and potentially optimize your instance's performance.

First, it's important to understand that Lightsail instances use burstable performance, which means they have a baseline CPU performance level with the ability to burst above that baseline when needed. The high "Other" CPU usage you're seeing could be related to your instance operating in the burstable zone.

To investigate further:

1. Monitor your instance's CPU utilization and burst capacity using the Lightsail console. Navigate to the Metrics tab on your instance's management page and select "CPU overview" from the dropdown menu. This will show you graphs of average CPU utilization and remaining CPU burst capacity.

2. Pay attention to whether your instance is consistently operating in the burstable zone. If so, it may be consuming more CPU burst capacity than it's accruing, which could lead to performance issues.

3. Use the operating system's built-in tools to get a more detailed view of processes consuming CPU. For Linux instances, you can use tools like 'top' or 'htop' to see a breakdown of CPU usage by process.

4. Consider whether your workload is appropriate for a Lightsail instance. Lightsail is designed for web servers, developer environments, and small database use cases that don't consistently use the full CPU. If you're running resource-intensive applications or need consistently high CPU performance, you might want to consider upgrading to a larger Lightsail instance or moving to Amazon EC2.

5. Review your application code and database queries for potential optimizations that could reduce CPU usage.

6. If the issue persists and you can't identify the cause, you may want to contact AWS support for further assistance.

Remember, Lightsail instances are designed to handle occasional bursts in CPU usage, but if you're consistently seeing high CPU utilization, it might be time to consider scaling up your resources or optimizing your application.
Sources
Monitor CPU burst capacity for your Lightsail instance - Amazon Lightsail
Instances - Amazon Lightsail
View CPU utilization and burst capacity for Lightsail instances - Amazon Lightsail
Monitor Lightsail instance performance with metrics - Amazon Lightsail
Detect Lightsail instance bursting for optimal performance - Amazon Lightsail