nagvis requires ndoutils; how stable is ndoutils?

[Kevin Keane]

Rahul Nabar wrote:
>
>
> On Thu, Jun 25, 2009 at 12:20 AM, Kevin Keane <subscription at kkeane.com 
> <mailto:subscription at kkeane.com>> wrote:
>
>     I think that is a bit overreacting. ndoutils is a database client.
>
>
> Thanks Kevin. Point taken. 
>
>
>     Databases need management and tuning to get you good performance -
>     that's just routine, regardless of the brand you are using: mysql, SQL
>     Server, Oracle, Postgres, .... 
>
>
> But the way nagios natively stores data seems to be pretty robust 
> though. Nagios has scaled excellently right out of the box. From all 
> these discussions it seems that the problems arise when I try to hook 
> up ndoutils etc. in there. Maybe I am wrong!
No, you are entirely right. For that matter, ndoutils does absolutely 
NOTHING for Nagios itself. Nagios continues to store the data in its 
native format. Nagios itself doesn't need a database, doesn't benefit 
from it, and probably actually will take a (slight) performance hit from 
calling ndoutils and writing to the DB.

All it does is replicate the data into a database - you can think of it 
as an export utility to MySQL. What it comes down to: if you need the 
data available in a database for some tool like nagviz, you use 
ndoutils. If you don't - then don't use ndoutils. Simple as that.

Also, keep in mind that Nagios' native data storage is designed for just 
Nagios own internal use. If other tools started accessing it directly, 
it would very quickly stop being robust.
> >No amount of work or "polishing" will change that. There's a reason 
> DBAs are highly valued professionals.
>
> I feel that's the crux though. If each native nagios install neeed a 
> skilled DBA to tune it till it worked I doubt it'd have been so 
> successful.
Fortunately, it's not quite that bad. For smaller installations - the 
vast majority - the necessary tuning is something you can do yourself 
with a little bit of research. I'm not a DBA, just a universalist who 
dabbles in everything from C++ to SQL to Active Directory to Linux 
administration.

Only if your installation is truly humongous would you need a DBA to 
really wring out the last little ounce of performance.

That said, there are also good reasons why everybody is using databases 
for all kinds of things today. Heck, my Web site stores the content in a 
database! Databases do add a lot of power and flexibility, provide 
access for multiple clients, a very simple interface, they can easily be 
made available across a network are easy to back up and very robust. 
These things are the reasons very few tools access the proprietary 
Nagios data directly but most require ndoutils. And if somebody was to 
rewrite Nagios from scratch today, they would probably store the data in 
a database to begin with.

I'd also like to point out that Nagios itself needs just as much tuning 
as a database does. As does the Linux server you are running it on.

-- 
Kevin Keane
Owner
The NetTech
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