Metadata work, mostly - directory crawls, access checks, things like that (in CIFS).  In NFS, ACCESS, READDIR, READDIR+ , stuff like that. 
I think you can use 'cifs top -s ops' to see the busiest clients hitting the system.  If the ones at the top have very high ops, but not many reads/writes, those could be your guys. 
That said, it's all about latency.  If it isn't driving latency higher, shouldn't be a concern.  Those are different stats commands, though, can't remember right now......
--- On Fri, 6/5/09, Page, Jeremy <jeremy.page(a)gilbarco.com> wrote:
> From: Page, Jeremy <jeremy.page(a)gilbarco.com>
> Subject: Other OPS?
> To: toasters(a)mathworks.com
> Date: Friday, June 5, 2009, 3:10 PM
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> What
> causes other ops?
> I understand that pretty much everything that hits the
> filer requires something
> but I am seeing what looks like a very high number of other
> ops when I do a
> stats show. Does this indicate a problem or is it just a
> busy box?  It’s
> a mixed mode volume. Just trying to figure out what’s
> causing it to work
> so hard. 
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> Instance
> total_ops read_ops write_ops other_ops nfs_read_ops
> nfs_write_op nfs_other_op
> cifs_read_op cifs_write_o cifs_other_o 
> 
>                
> /s      
> /s       
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