[rrd-users] Question on correct data type

[Sam Umbach]

>  Maybe this is just showing my ignorance, but has anyone ever experienced a
> counter that fluctuates like this? If so, what have you found to be the best
> way to handle it in RRDtool? I have tried counter, and guage....and out of
> desperation tried absolute...none of which really depicted what I expected.
>
>  Has anyone experienced fluctuating counters? Are they common? How do you
> handle them?

Jeff,

I can't tell you what's going on with that counter.  I don't imagine
the appliance has 4 million objects currently open, so that number
looks like nonsense.  Google to look for an issue specific to the
appliance vendor, and if you don't see anything, contact the vendor
directly.  It's not uncommon for there to be bugs in an SNMP data
model.

If you want to graph the delta (in objects opened/closed per second),
you should use the DERIVE data source type.  That will subtract the
new counter value from the old counter value and divide by the number
of seconds between the data points.  If you want to display the actual
counter value, use the ABSOLUTE data source type.  I can't tell you if
either of these is an appropriate interpretation of the data; you'll
have to work with the vendor to work that out.

-Sam