Cacti and trending/prediction

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alexhawdon
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Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2008 10:02 am

Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by alexhawdon »

Hi all,

I've had a look at the docs and the forum, but not sure if this feature is included with Cacti...

I'd like to use Cacti for file-system utilisation monitoring, but I'd like an intelligent 'dashboard' type feature that shows me just the information that I want to see, based on thresholds and predicted utilisation.

Image

Is it possible to set graphs up like this, then have a dashboard view that shows me file-systems that have exceeded the set threshold (configurable per-filesystem) or are predicted to exceed the threshold (independently configurable per-filesystem) with a week, based on the 3day, 1week or 1month average predictions?

Thanks and regards,

Alex
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gandalf
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Post by gandalf »

I know this image. I've already asked the author to get some info about exact rrdtool statements. Unfortunately, he uses some rrdtool patch not yet integrated into plain vanilla rrdtool (used for "future prediction").
And, of course, some graph management options are missing in cacti. We've just discussed support for each and every rrdtool feature with the devs. It was decided not to implement them with 088. So you'll have to wait for a later release, sorry
Reinhard
alexhawdon
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oh well!

Post by alexhawdon »

Cheers for the speedy reply!

Cacti looks like a great tool for collecting and analysing historical data, and I'm trying to (kinda) use it for alerting - so I guess that's why the feature isn't there. Perhaps one for the future though? It could be quite useful for trending and capacity planning type stuff.

Best regards,

Alex
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gandalf
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Post by gandalf »

Alerting is done by the THOLD plugin.
RRDTool authors are always fuzzy about "predicting the future", and I understand them. Linear effects are not always the correct assumption.
And there's Holt Winters prediction with rrdtool (not well documented and not supported by cacti, currently).
Last, there's the TREND function which is supported both by rrdtool and cacti; but it may not do what you like it to do ...
At least, you may create data tables using the CSV download or the REPORTIT plugin for some post processing with your favorite "do what I mean tool" (aka statistic package :wink: )
Reinhard
alexhawdon
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Post by alexhawdon »

thanks for the info.

I know what you mean about the dodgyness of attempting to do proper 'predictions' for Capacity Planning purposes, etc - doing averages and such is never going to be very accurate for most purposes.

But for short-term monitoring purposes (in my case, I want something like this as part of my daily checks - a dashboard that shows me filesystems that already have dangerously high usage, or look like they will have within the next few days) I believe there is value.

Best regards,

Alex
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gandalf
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Post by gandalf »

alexhawdon wrote:... I believe there is value.
Oh, sure. I do not want to evangelize anyone.
My remarks were aimed at the rrdtool patch created by the author of that really nice graph. This patch aims at prediction. And as I know from rrdtool-users mailing lists, the rrdtool authors are very picky about prediction.
So my goal was not to hope beyond measure that this patch will ever be integrated with rrdtool.
Reinhard
przystojniak
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by przystojniak »

Guys, I was wondering whether any progress has been made in this direction. Are you still considering adding the prediction feature to Cacti base?
Or perhaps there is a plugin that does it already?
whozyodaddy
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by whozyodaddy »

IMO, one would need to get a good idea of the trend for at least two previous time periods (i.e. day and week) to get a better probability of the future. Reminds me of trading on the stock market :D Problem is the rrd issue with averages wiping out peaks and thus normalizing over time. Gandalf posted a HOWTO on this but his PDF is not there and googling for it, to my surprise, lands me nowhere.

http://forums.cacti.net/about9826.html

Some additional references here:
http://forums.cacti.net/about13409.html
http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=43289
noname
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by noname »

It seems current Cacti (0.8.7*) doesn't implement prediction method,
but some users tried this in the past.

For example:
- http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=25930
- http://forums.cacti.net/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=23758
przystojniak
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by przystojniak »

Thanks guys. Too much hacking for a newbie :-)
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gandalf
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by gandalf »

noname wrote:It seems current Cacti (0.8.7*) doesn't implement prediction method,
Neither does 088, currently. Sponsors welcome. Quite a huge coding effort (at least for a full implementation)
R.
voyager
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Re: Cacti and trending/prediction

Post by voyager »

Cacti (0.8.9*) expected to be announced ?
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