[rrd-users] values being averaged.

[Marc Powell]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: rrd-users-bounces at lists.oetiker.ch [mailto:rrd-users-
> bounces at lists.oetiker.ch] On Behalf Of Richard.W.Brown at nokia.com
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2008 10:19 AM
> To: alex at ergens.op.het.net; rrd-users at lists.oetiker.ch
> Subject: Re: [rrd-users] values being averaged.
> 
> Thanks for the reply,
> 
> I had already read through the documentation, man pages and tutorials
> before posting. I had also spent some time with just trial and error
> where I wanted to clarify some of the examples as see what happened
if.
> So your assumption was wrong :-)
> 
> My biggest assumption was that the documentation was correct, this
seems
> to be incorrect, as the tutorial rrd_beginners
> http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/tut/rrd-beginners.en.html states quiet
> clearly:
> "GAUGE does not save the rate of change. It saves the actual value
> itself. There are no divisions or calculations."

That's a correct statement, with the understanding that you must insert
the values with an exact timestamp that matches your interval. If you
insert on the interval, the exact value is saved. If off-interval, an
estimate of the value based on the delta from the interval is inserted.
This is different than a rate of change being calculated and inserted.

> It seems this tool will not do what I expected it to, and from your

Perhaps not. rrdtool is first and foremost a tool for working with
rates, not GAUGE values. It can be made to work with GAUGE values
successfully if you understand how they work within the tool.

> abrupt reply I do not expect to get a useful answer.  Also since you
did
> not comment on the incorrect answer to he other post with a similar
> query, I will look elsewhere.

I personally don't blame him. This is covered almost weekly in the
archives, at least several times a month. There's a _lot_ of information
related to this available if you look.

--
Marc