# Random 100% CPU Spikes on an staging cluster

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [January 20, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348 "2017-01-20T22:09:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xgantan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/xgantan/32/14786_2.png) [@xgantan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/xgantan)\
**Post date:** [January 20, 2017, 10:09pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348/1 "2017-01-20T22:09:46Z")

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We have a 2 node (r3.large.elasticsearch) cluster that's running filter-based queries to retrieve documents from a small index (around 9 million documents total). From time to time, under no particular queries, the CPUs in the cluster would spike to 100% along with a memory spike that goes above 75%. We are not sure whether this is caused by filter-cache eviction or under-provisioned cluster boxes. We do have high-cardinality search fields, however, so it might make sense to disable filter-caches for those and keep filter-caches enabled for low-cardinality fields. We are wondering what would be the right approach, disable-filter-cache or increase box sizes?

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**Author:** ![warkolm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/warkolm/32/39224_2.png) [@warkolm](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/warkolm)\
**Post date:** [January 21, 2017, 8:56am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348/2 "2017-01-21T08:56:09Z")

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Until you know what it is, doing anything will be guessing.  
I'd install Monitoring to get a better insight into things./

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**Author:** ![xgantan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/xgantan/32/14786_2.png) [@xgantan](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/xgantan)\
**Post date:** [January 23, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348/3 "2017-01-23T22:34:33Z")

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Unfortunately we are on an AWS-managed Elasticsearch cluster so there is no extra monitoring we can install besides the usual CPU/disk/ram usage, which is attached here

 ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/2X/6/6b8f09b2ee80d99596925f92df30147151044eee.png)

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [February 20, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/random-100-cpu-spikes-on-an-staging-cluster/72348/4 "2017-02-20T22:34:38Z")

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