RRDtool — Accessing Raw Data

Preparing RRDtool Data for SAS IT Resource Management

The round-robin database tool, RRDtool, is a freeware package that is available for download from Tobias Oetiker.

The RRDtool adapter reads any round-robin databases that have been created with rrdtool. The data can be gathered at any interval (step), any metrics can be gathered, and any consolidation function (CF) can be used. Because SAS IT Resource Management has its own aggregation process, the data read from the round-robin databases should be detail data, not consolidated data. In order to store detail data using rrdtool, set the CF to any statistic, and then set the number of steps for each consolidation point to 1. This keeps the data at the detail level, that is, one record for each time interval.

Note: The RRDtool adapter reads the data even if it has been consolidated.

The adapter will read a single round-robin database, or it will read all round-robin databases in directory. If multiple round-robin databases are read, the data will be combined into a single staging table.

Because a round-robin database can store only numeric data, users of rrdtool generally store identifying character data in the name or path of the round-robin database. For example, SNMP data is often stored in round-robin databases and the device and interface information is usually used in the name of the round-robin database to identify the metrics that are being gathered. The filename of each round-robin database is saved by the RRDtool adapter in a field called filename. Therefore, it can be used to create computed columns with this identifying information. For example, if you have two round-robin databases: c:\RRD\ABC.rrd and c:\RRD\XYZ.rrd, then you can create a computed column with an expression of:

scan(filename,
                     3, “\.”)

This enables you to store the name of each RRD (“ABC” and “XYZ”) in a new column.

Note: You can backload data from the RRDtool adapter. To do so, use the

rrdtool fetch
                     --start

option and rrdtool fetch --end option staging parameters to specify the date range of data to be read.

Preparing the RRDtool Adapter for Staging

To read the raw data from rrdtool, run Perl scripts as part of the staging process. This means that Perl must be installed on the machine that the SAS program runs on, that is, the SAS Workspace Server, the SAS batch server, or interactive SAS.

The Perl scripts that are used by the staging code are generated as part of the code generation of the staging job. This code can be viewed and modified as necessary in the Code tab of the job.

To run these scripts in batch mode, it is necessary to set the xcmd option for the Batch server. To do so, change set USERMODS_OPTIONS= to

set
                     USERMODS_OPTIONS=XCMD

To run these scripts from within the SAS Workspace server, it is necessary to have the SAS option XCMD turned on. By default this option is off in the Workspace server. To turn the option on, perform the following steps:

Launch SAS Management Console. Log on as an administrator.
Expand the Server Manager in the left panel.
Expand SASITRM. Then expand SASITRM-Logical Workspace Server.
Right-click SASITRM-Workspace Server and select Properties. The Workspace Server Properties dialog box appears.
Select the Options tab and click Advanced Options.
Select the Launch Properties tab to open the following dialog box.

Launch Properties Tab of the Advanced Options Dialog Box
Select the Allow XCMD check box.
Click OK to close all the open dialog boxes.
Stop and then restart your Object Spawner service.

Windows Specifics: To stop your Object Spawner service, select StartProgamsSASSAS Configuration<configuration-name>Object SpawnerStop. To restart your Object Spawner service, select StartProgamsSASSAS Configuration<configuration-name>Object SpawnerStop.

UNIX Specifics: To stop and then restart your Object Spawner service, from the command line, change directories to SAS-config-dir/Lev1/SASMain/ObjectSpawner. Stop the object spawner by issuing this command: $ ./ObjectSpawner.sh stop. When you receive a confirmation that the object spawner has stopped, start it again by issuing this command: $ ./ObjectSpawner.sh start. You should receive a confirmation that the object spawner has started.

z/OS Specifics: To stop and restart your Object Spawner service, stop and restart the z/OS started task associated with the Object Spawner. Follow the stop and restart procedures that are established at your site.