report graphing

[androidUser78]

I am not sure where else to post this but I am running a LAMP
environment and my users now want historical graphical reporting. For
instance, normally the user would have a web interface and submit a
bunch of parameters to it and I would spit back a report. But now they
want this report to be graphical and they want it to keep historical
information of their parameters. So for instance at 9am they want to
see how many hits a site got (assume for example purposes we store in
the DB). Then at 9:10, the report is refreshed and they see how many
hits we have gotten since 9am, then 9:20, etc, etc. The interface and
backend stuff is already done but does anyone use or know of any tools
that would help me plot this stuff? I looked at Cacti but it seems
like it only takes a script that you need to enter into the web
interface.

Any input is appreciated.

Jim

 

[Steve C]

I am not sure where else to post this but I am running a LAMP
environment and my users now want historical graphical reporting. For
instance, normally the user would have a web interface and submit a
bunch of parameters to it and I would spit back a report. But now they
want this report to be graphical and they want it to keep historical
information of their parameters. So for instance at 9am they want to
see how many hits a site got (assume for example purposes we store in
the DB). Then at 9:10, the report is refreshed and they see how many
hits we have gotten since 9am, then 9:20, etc, etc. The interface and
backend stuff is already done but does anyone use or know of any tools
that would help me plot this stuff? I looked at Cacti but it seems
like it only takes a script that you need to enter into the web
interface.

use Chart;
if you want to have the db and just want to roll your own graphics.

use rrdtool if you want to set up something new to store the data for you and
to generate plots.

 

[androidUser78]

use Chart;
if you want to have the db and just want to roll your own graphics.

use rrdtool if you want to set up something new to store the data for youand
to generate plots.

I am reading about rrdtool. Will it be able to handle a result set
from a DB and be able to store it in its own DB?

 

[J. Gleixner]

I am not sure where else to post this but I am running a LAMP
environment and my users now want historical graphical reporting. For
instance, normally the user would have a web interface and submit a
bunch of parameters to it and I would spit back a report. But now they
want this report to be graphical and they want it to keep historical
information of their parameters. So for instance at 9am they want to
see how many hits a site got (assume for example purposes we store in
the DB). Then at 9:10, the report is refreshed and they see how many
hits we have gotten since 9am, then 9:20, etc, etc. The interface and
backend stuff is already done but does anyone use or know of any tools
that would help me plot this stuff? I looked at Cacti but it seems
like it only takes a script that you need to enter into the web
interface.

Any input is appreciated.

Jim

If the same thing was to run every x minutes and you wanted to see
trends over time, for example:

http://cricket.sourceforge.net/

I know it's not a perl solution, however since you mention a Web
interface, there are plenty of Javascript based graphing libraries:
dygraph, Eastwood Charts, Google Charts, ExtJS, etc.. You could
have a simple CGI that stores the parameters, calculate/fetch the
results, then provide it as XML, CSV, JSON, name/value pairs, etc. to
one of those interfaces to create some very, very nice graphs/charts.

 

[ccc31807]

I am not sure where else to post this but I am running a LAMP
environment and my users now want historical graphical reporting. For
instance, normally the user would have a web interface and submit a
bunch of parameters to it and I would spit back a report. But now they
want this report to be graphical

I routinely produce a large number of visualizations of historical
data.
(1) Run a database query, which means that you store your data in a DB
(2) Run a Perl script using your query results as the input data
(3) I use GD::Graph to produce GIFs.

I format my output as PDF files, I normally produce several dozen at a
time graphing different things and my report is typically over ten
pages long with six GIFs on each page.

It would be easy to create a link (or input button) that runs the
query, formats the data, creates the GIF dynamically, and displays it
on your web page. As others may point out, there are tools that do
this for you, but if you use Perl (which you do on your LAMP stack)
it's probably just as well to roll your own.

GD::Graph isn't too difficult if you only want simple stuff. I haven't
mastered it but I can certainly use it to create as many simple charts
as I want.

CC.

 

[Steve C]

I am reading about rrdtool. Will it be able to handle a result set
from a DB and be able to store it in its own DB?

I've never used it that way, but you could. It seems kind of inefficient to
copy the data, but you could generate the rrd database by scanning your db
and including the timestamp option in the rrdupdate calls.

 

[Ted Zlatanov]

a> I am not sure where else to post this but I am running a LAMP
a> environment and my users now want historical graphical reporting. For
a> instance, normally the user would have a web interface and submit a
a> bunch of parameters to it and I would spit back a report. But now they
a> want this report to be graphical and they want it to keep historical
a> information of their parameters. So for instance at 9am they want to
a> see how many hits a site got (assume for example purposes we store in
a> the DB). Then at 9:10, the report is refreshed and they see how many
a> hits we have gotten since 9am, then 9:20, etc, etc. The interface and
a> backend stuff is already done but does anyone use or know of any tools
a> that would help me plot this stuff? I looked at Cacti but it seems
a> like it only takes a script that you need to enter into the web
a> interface.

If your data is not top-secret and you don't mind surrendering control,
Google Charts has a nice interface that you can drive from Perl or
directly from a web application.

Ted