server consolidation, preserving all historical data

[obx2]

Hi,

[ sorry folx if this is covered elsewhere. I did search both the docs & the forums, but no luck (keywords used: server consolidation, combining, preserve historical data) ]


We are running cacti in production on multiple Linux servers, each with its own mysql instance (yeah, I know... inherited setup). Until recently, multiple boxes were required due to poller.php+snmpget, and all were still overloaded, with a runtime of about 4min on each server, and a run averages constantly in the 10-15 range.

However, an upgrade to cactid 0.8.6e dropped the run average to ~0.1, and the runtime from 4min+ to 18s. Just beautiful, and stable, too.
(BIG thank you to the developers!!!)

Therefore, we would like to consolidate & decouple the setup, at 3 levels:
(1) single mysql server, with a single cacti database
(2) separate, single poller host for now, multiple pollers later
(3) separate, single web management / graphing engine front-end

Unfortunately, all the current cacti databases appear totally in conflict, with the same keys reused for different devices/variables. I believe I cannot just A) dump db on server1, B) reload on server2, and C) copy rra/*rrd over. (or can I???)

Are there any tools to help with such a server consolidation (must preserve all historical data!) ? Otherwise, would appreciate pointers/sample code/commands to relevant cacti/mysql/rrd internals needed to develop a custom script (will contribute, if so). Can manage scripting just fine, but not sure where to start and how to proceed to ensure no data loss/corruption at any level.

Thank you!!
-- obx

[gaurav]

I am in the process of doing something similar as well. Unfortunately, there is no simple way.

What I am doing is to create new rrds and graphs for the devices and then copy the existing rrds to the newly created ones. Pain in the royal south but that is the simplest way. Creating of devices and graphs is not very difficult because of templates.

[TheWitness]

If I didn't have a full time job already, I would take this as a professional services job to perform the migration. It's not too hard, but difficult. Much of the data in Cacti can be easily recreated without too much effort.

You would prepare the database first, verify it's operation and then rename your rrd's once copied over to the new server. You would perform that process first as a test, and then as a production test once all the bugs were worked out of the process in order to limit any interruption in polling.

TheWitness