Hi.
Quote:
In information technology, the observer effect is the potential impact of the act of observing a process output while the process is running. For example: if a process uses a log file to record its progress, the process could slow. --
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observe...ion_technology)
So from my point of view, if you are concerned with observing the work, then you must also be concerned about the
generation of the data that you wish to analyze.
This suggests that the only measurement allowable would be completely external to the system in question. For example, using a stop watch, one could time a computational load, but could not depend on
any other data from the system, because that would have an impact. Farther, one should
disable the generation of data that records any data
except that of computational answers -- no capture of CPU time, IO time, nothing except the results of computation.
So the answer seems to be easy: use any of the available commands that are not part of the system under consideration, the measurement needs to be wholly external. The measurement of a known computation can be recorded, then a multiple of that load, and the calculation of system characteristics can be done externally.
Good luck ... cheers, drl