[rrd-users] Can't I turn off data smoothing for GAUGE?

[Simon Hobson]

Marc MERLIN wrote:

>I had a problem, which is explained in more details here:
>http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?p=197724#197724
>
>Basically, I use a GAUGE as a bitfield because I don't have anymore room
>to add DS entries in my RRD since it's already 2GB.
>
>I've been told that rrdtool does not allow turning off data smoothing,
>even for GAUGE.  Is that true?
>If so, can this be considered as a feature, there are definitely causes,
>even if you don't abuse a GAUGE DS as a bitfield, where smoothing data
>would just yield total rubish data that shouldn't be there by 
>creating intermediate
>values that may not be valid data at all.

No, there is no way to do that, and it's unlikely to be accepted as a 
suggestion as it goes against the fundamental design philosophy of 
rrd tool. You can cause the normalisation to be a null operator by 
ensuring that you update on every step boundary - not a second early 
or late - and do no consolidation.


See http://www.vandenbogaerdt.nl/rrdtool/
In particular, see the tutorial on "Rates, normalizing and consolidating"
for an explanation of what rrd tool does. It is not "smoothing", it 
is normalising the data to fixed periods.

In short, for what you are trying to do, rrd tool isn't the right tool.

-- 
Simon Hobson

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