1 #####################################
2 Major Changes between 1.4.x and ...
3 -------------------------------------
4 $Id$
6 RRD Graph
7 ---------
8 * GRAD element for graph, it acts more or less like an AREA,
9 except you can specify a second color and a height which is used to
10 create a gradient from one color to the next
11 by Rian Shelley
13 * RRDcached awareness. Instead of just flushing the file, data can now
14 be pulled in from remote RRDcached instances.
16 * VDEF results do now explicitly KNOW when they have no time associated
17 and can behave appropriately. -- Jean-Edouard Babin
19 RRDcached
20 ----------
21 * New FETCH command allowing rrd_fetch to operate through the daemon and
22 thus work remotely. By Florian Forster
24 API
25 ---
26 * exported rrd_update_v_r for theadsave rrd_update calls
29 #####################################
30 Major Changes between 1.3.x and 1.4.x
31 -------------------------------------
33 RRD Caching Daemon (rrdcached)
34 ------------------------------
35 by Florian Forster and Kevin Brintnall
37 The RRD Caching Daemon can dramatically improve the 'update' performance
38 of your system. Due to file handling overheads, the time it takes todo one
39 update is virtually the same as to doing two updates in a row.
41 The Cache Daemon intercepts rrdtool update calls, assembling multiple
42 updates before writing them to the actual rrd file. When calling rrdtool
43 graph in such a setup, the command will tell the daemon to flush out all
44 pending updates for the rrd files, required to draw the graph.
46 See rrdcached documentation.
48 RRD Dumping and Restoring (rrdtool dump/restore)
49 ------------------------------------------------
50 by Tobi Oetiker
52 The output of rrdtool dump has been adjusted to be simpler to parse by
53 existing xml parsers.
55 The restore core has been completely re-written yet again and is now relying
56 on an incremental xml parser. This has the advantage that the memory
57 consumption while restoring xml files is only slightly larger than the
58 resulting rrd file. Which is much less than the requirements of the 1.3 and
59 even 1.2
61 RRD Graphing functions (rrdtool graph)
62 --------------------------------------
63 by Martin Sperl
65 * VDEF PERCENTNAN (a PRECENT that ignores NAN)
67 * CDEF PREDICT and PREDICTSIGMA functions for on-the-fly
68 data prediction without the need to modify existing rrd files as it is
69 required for HoltWinters.
71 * LibDBI integration provides a path to read data directly of a supported
72 SQL database into rrdtool graph. See rrdgraph_libdbi documentation.
74 Miscellaneous Changes
75 ---------------------
76 * graph legends can now be placed left, right or above the graph with the
77 new --legend-direction and --legend-positon placement options.
78 by Melchior Rabe
80 * switched to using automake 1.11 which provides a 'silent' build process,
81 causing errors and warnings to stand out much more than before.
82 by Tobi Oetiker
84 * switched from intltoolize to autopoint for the i18n configuration.
85 by Tobi Oetiker
87 * new graph option --grid-dash on:off to configure the dash length
88 in the grid painted over the graph by Tobi Oetiker
90 * lua bindings for rrdtool
91 by Fidelis Assis
93 * various improvements to rrd_open functions and mmap handling
94 by Daniel Pocock
96 * allow the HW smoothing window size to be set to 0 with rrdtool tune
97 by sylvain luiset
99 * new graph option --border to set the 3d border width
100 by Bernhard Reutner-Fischer
102 * draw different color markers (enable with --dynamic-labels) depending on the
103 type of element in the graph by Loïc Tortay
105 for more detail see the CHANGES file.
107 #####################################
108 Major Changes between 1.2.x and 1.3.x
109 -------------------------------------
111 NEW Fast file access methods (Bernhard Fischer / Tobi Oetiker)
112 ----------------------------
113 * introduced file-accessor functions rrd_read/rrd_seek/rrd_write
115 * implemented full mmap-based file access with madvise hints for
116 improved scalability, much reduced memory-footprint and much less
117 blocking while accessing the disk
119 * implemented optional full file-descriptor access instead of FILE*
120 access
122 NEW Graphing (Tobi Oetiker)
123 ------------
124 * libart has been replaced by cairo/pango
126 * pango markup is supported (--pango-markup)
128 * full grid fitting
130 * --graph-render-mode=mono for non anti aliased graphing
132 * --font-render-mode=mono for non anti aliased fonts
134 * fonts come through fontconfig, use the Pango font naming scheme
135 -> 'Times 20' ... it is not possible to use true-type fonts
136 directly anymore.
138 * Tabs are position independent.
140 * TRENDNAN filter that ignores NAN values while calculating the
141 TREND data. (Timo Stripf)
143 * --full-size-mode to specify the outer border of the image and not
144 just of the graphing canvas (Matthew Chambers)
146 * TEXTALIGN command to alter default text alignment behavior
148 * C API in-memory graphing with rrd_graph_v (Evan Miller)
150 * draw dashed lines in graphs (Thomas Gutzler)
152 * new interface graphv which returns information using the rrd_info
153 interface (Tobi Oetiker and Mark Plaksin)
155 * improved horizontal grid. Have a bit more grid lines and y-axis
156 labels while keeping them far enough apart to not run into each
157 other.
159 NEW Forecasting (Evan Miller)
160 ---------------
161 * the new MHWPREDICT consolidation function uses a variation of the
162 Holt-Winters method. It is a drop-in replacement for HWPREDICT,
163 and is better suited for data whose seasonal variations grow or
164 shrink in proportion to the average.
166 * If you create an RRD with the new MHWPREDICT function, the
167 resulting rrd file will be version 0004 and can only be used in
168 rrdtool 1.3.
170 Rewrites
171 --------
172 * rrd_restore now uses libxml for parsing which makes things much
173 more tolerant towards xml variations. The old code could mostly
174 just parse the XML as it was output by rrdtool dump. See also:
175 the note at the bottom of this document. (by Florian octo
176 Forster)
178 * rrd_update rewritten to make it more modular. Fixed two
179 longstanding HW bugs in the process (Evan Miller)
181 Internationalization (Takao Fujiwara and Tobi Oetiker)
182 --------------------
183 * The help output by rrdtool has been internationalized. There are
184 no real translations included with rrdtool yet, contributions are
185 welcome.
187 * The internationalization will only be compiled if libintl and
188 friends are available on your system. Use the configure option
189 --disable-libintl if you want to disable this feature
191 Language Bindings
192 -----------------
193 * ruby rrd_fetch will return step as a last property -- Mike Perham
195 RRDtool dump / restore incompatibility
196 --------------------------------------
197 * rrdtool dump 1.3 does emit completely legal XML. Basically this
198 means that it contains an XML header and a DOCTYPE definition.
199 Unfortunately this causes older versions of rrdtool restore to be
200 unhappy.
202 * To restore a new dump with an old rrdtool restore version, either
203 remove the XML header and the doctype by hand (both on the first
204 line of the dump) or use rrdtool dump --no-header.
207 ######################################################################################
208 Major Changes between 1.0.x and 1.2.x
209 ======================================================================================
210 Graphing
211 --------
213 * rewritten graphics generation based on libart.
214 - anti-aliased output
215 - alpha transparency support
216 - truetype fonts
218 * additional graphics formats: EPS, PDF, SVG
220 * extended multi-part documentation
222 * VDEF support; define and use variables. Find, and use, the
223 maximum rate seen by rrdtool; compute and show the average
225 * Sliding window (trend) analysis
226 Compute a smoother average, for instance over the last 6 CDPs
228 * percentile (95th or other)
229 Remove peaks, 95 percent of all rates are at or below the
230 returned value
232 Logging
233 -------
234 * a second logging interface: rrdtool updatev
235 Verbose updating of the database; show CPDs being created
237 * Aberrant Behavior Detection with Holt-Winters Forecasting
238 Compare current data with expected data, detect and log when
239 the rates are outside expected levels
241 * COMPUTE data type for artificial data-sources calculating their
242 input using RPN math and data from the other data-sources.
244 Incompatibilities
245 -----------------
246 * Colons in COMMENT arguments to rrdtool graph must be escaped with a backslash
248 * the --alt-y-mrtg option is gone or rather since 1.2.7 it is back but
249 without functionality.
251 * In pipe mode, rrdtool answers with OK only if it was successful with the
252 command. Otherwhise the answer will be ERROR...
255 Behind the Scenes
256 -----------------
257 * In order to support Holt-Winters and Calculated Datasources,
258 the rrdtool data format has changed. While the new version of rrdtool can
259 read files created with rrdtool 1.0.x. It is not possible to read files
260 created by rrdtool-1.2.x with rrdtool-1.0.x
262 * External libraries are not included with rrdtool anymore. This is in line
263 with todays trend of using shared libraries everywhere. With the exception
264 of the cgi library most things required by rrdtool will be found on every recent
265 system.
267 * Memory Mapped IO support for faster logging.