Introduction to RRD Manager

RRD Manager is a RRD front End for Windows that is available with LoriotPro as a service plugin. RRD manager is a full Windows dialog box based application and allows you to create and manage the RRD databases, the RRD graphs and the reports. RRD Manager is not able to collect the data to store in RRD database. This role is handled by the RRD collector plugin.

About RRD database: RRD databases are simple text file of fixed size that contain the collected data coming from various sources, SNMP data are the common source of data in LoriotPro but data source capabilities will be extended in future version of LoriotPro. RRD manager can help you to define RRD profiles and create RRD database with this profiles. A RRD profiles define a set of generic data sources and a set of archives. Archives are the result of a consolidation function applied on the set of data sources. Archive contains generally the average values of a set of samples, as an example 60 values collected each minute can be averaged to give a single value for the hour period.

About RRD graphs: RRD graphs are image files representing time graph that are generated with the data stored in the database. RRD Manager allows you to define graphs and to customize them. You can for example define how many items you want to plot in a graph, their colour, the sampling frequency, the Y scale and legend, the graph type, line area, staked area etc.

About Reports: Reports are text and image file in HTML format that can be viewed either on the LoriotPro local console or from the WEB console. Reports can contains any description text and any graphs define in the earlier stage.

The RRD manager helps you to create the RRD database.

When creating a RRD database with RRD manager you can define its general properties.

• The RRD database name identifying one database among others. When the database is created by a plugin like the RRD collector plugin its name is automatically composed of its UID.
• The RRD database file name identifying is the file name and stored in the /bin/RRDDatabase directory.
• The date of creation of the database
• The author of the creation.
• A description field that helps to better understand the purpose of this base.

When creating a RRD profile with RRD manager you should define the following options.

• The time interval at which the data will be stored in the RRD database.
• The older limit date of accepted data.
• A set of data sources. A data source DS is one variable that changes over time.
• A set of round robin archives. A RRA is one consolidated variable over a time period.

When creating RRD graphs with RRD manager you should define the following options:

• The RRD graph name identifying one graph among others.
• The RRD graph file name identifying is the file name and stored in the …
• The date of creation of the graph
• The author of the graph creation
• A description field that helps to better understand the purpose of this graph.

A graph is composed of items, each item is plotted with the data extracted from the RRD database.

For each graph you can define:

• the title,
• the Y axis scale,
• the Y axis legend,
• the Y axis scale type, linear or logarithmic,
• The time range,  a start time and end time of the x axis

For each item in the graph you can and should define:

• the RRD database from which data source will be extracted
• one data source of this database
• a consolidation function to apply to this data source
• a new source result of a mathematical or logical expression and previous defined items
• the item type, line, area, stacked area
• the colour of the item.