[mrtg] Re: 95th percentile?

[George D. Nincehelser]

You don't *have* to graph it, but doing so should sure make make it a lot
easier to explain to your boss or customer (or maybe yourself) what it
means.  (e.g. "If this little line (traffic) goes higher than that little
line (95th percentile) a little to often, open up your wallet.)

Since the 95th percentile figure translates directly into $$$, everyone one
(including the non-technical types) are really concerned with what the value
is and where it is going.  It needs to be expressed quickly and clearly, and
putting it on the graph seems to me a good way to do it.  Having this info
would give everyone viewing them a clear view of our costs and ideas on how
to manage them.

I'd really like to see a historic 95th percentile (like last month's billing
period) and a "current" 95th percentile based on usage in this billing
period.

Giving this some more thought, I'm a little unclear on the current 5-minute
MRTG graphs...Do the 5-minute graphs show peaks, or are they showing an
average?  I've always assumed it was an averaged value, but I turned on
"WithPeaks" to see what would happen.  I then get peaks on all the other
graphs, but *not* on the 5-minute graph.  What am I not understanding here?

George


----- Original Message -----
From: Brian Pavane <bpavane at liii.com>
To: George D. Nincehelser <george at aaih.net>
Cc: Pete Templin <templin at urdirect.net>; David C Prall <dcp at dcptech.com>;
<mrtg at list.ee.ethz.ch>
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 1999 4:23 PM
Subject: [mrtg] Re: 95th percentile?


> I don't think the 95th percentile information really needs to be graphed.
> Meerly a program that could pull the readings every 5 minutes from a piece
> of equipment (say... a cisco), and then via cron at the end of the month
> spit out a report would be sufficient.  This type of program doesn't need
> to be tied to MRTG, however, being that MRTG is already pulling this data,
> it would be best to find a way to reuse what MRTG pulls.
>
> On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, George D. Nincehelser wrote:
>
> > That's exactly what I've been looking for.
> >
> > I assume that there is a way an external script can gather the data and
> > calculate the 95th percentile,  then pass that info in some way to MRTG
so
> > it can be graphed?
> >
> > I'm unclear as to the best way to graph the 95th percentile data.  I'm
> > thinking that a simple straight line across the graph would be
sufficient
> > for billing purposes, but a trending line might look cool.  I imagine
the
> > line would best be reset at the end of each billing period.
> >
> > Thoughts?
> > George
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: mrtg-bounce at list.ee.ethz.ch
[mailto:mrtg-bounce at list.ee.ethz.ch]On
> > > Behalf Of Pete Templin
> > > Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 10:04 AM
> > > To: David C Prall
> > > Cc: mrtg at list.ee.ethz.ch
> > > Subject: [mrtg] Re: 95th percentile?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Fri, 24 Sep 1999, David C Prall wrote:
> > >
> > > > What exactly are you looking for. I just use the WithPeak[]: wmy
option.
> > > > This shows the high along with the averages. Giving you four lines
> > > > rather then two.
> > > >
> > > > At some point there was a patch for doing this, but at somepoint I
> > > > believe it got converted into the WithPeak option. I have only been
> > > > using MRTG for 6 months where I have actually looked beyond the
standard
> > > > default configmaker script. And at that point WithPeak was
implemented,
> > > > so I used it.
> > >
> > > Most folks looking for 95th percentile want to be able to calculate
the
> > > 95th percentile of all of the data over a given time period (usually a
> > > month).  MRTG only keeps its five minutes numbers for about two days,
and
> > > then it only stores averaged averages.  It's impossible to recreate
the
> > > true 95th percentile five minute average using reaveraged numbers; the
> > > peaks merely show the highest five minute peak across a two hour
period.
> > > There's no way to determine how many five minute samples were that
high.
> > >
> > > Some people have written scripts that archive a day's worth of
five-minute
> > > samples each day, and then crank through that unaveraged data at the
end
> > > of the month.  The few folks I've talked to about this usually wrote
it on
> > > company time, and weren't permitted to release their script.  It's
> > > actually not that hard; the challenge is making sure that it scales
well
> > > (or can be reengineered to scale).
> > >
> > > Pete
> > >
> > > --
> > > Peter J. Templin, Jr., CCNA
> > > Systems and Networks Administrator
> > >
> > > On-Line Internet Services - URDirect.net
> > > A division of Global On-Line Computers
> > > 2414 Babcock Rd. Suite 106 templin at urdirect.net
> > > San Antonio, TX 78229 (210)692-9911
> > >
> > > --
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> > >
> > >
> >
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> >
> >
>
>
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>

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