Status Report on the RRDtool OSS Project
========================================
Author:  Tobias Oetiker
Date:    2008-11-24
$Id$


Accomplishments
---------------

* RRDtool 1.3

  * The new major version has been released in early summer, containing
    major updates to both the database and the graphing layer.

  * Subsequent releases of the 1.3.x series focused on stability, backward
    compatibility and performance improvements.

* RRDtool 1.2.x

  * Several minor stability and portability issues have been addressed
    with new minor releases. The 1.2 series remains the most widely
    used version of RRDtool since it is present in a wide variety of
    Linux distributions.

* Development of RRDtool 1.4

  With the release of RRDtool 1.3 trunk was opened for work on RRDtool 1.4. 
  New features include:

  - RRDcached aiming at massive performance enhancements for large
    installations with hundreds of thousands of RRD files.

  - SQL database access for RRDtool graph. This allows to use RRDtool's
    excellent graphing capabilities on time series data
    acquired directly from a SQL database (through libdbi).

  RRDtool 1.4 is in a stabilization phase now, prior to release of the
  first release candidates in early 2009.


Other Ongoing Activities
------------------------

* Code Maintenance: mails on the mailing-lists and directly to me
  indicate compatibility issues or suggest little changes. These are
  often implemented immediately.

* Mailing-list, Web-server, Trac maintenance. The on-line resources
  for RRDtool are kept up-to-date, in working order and spam free.

* Several tutorials and Bofs on RRDtool at LISA 2009 (conference on
  Large Installation System Administration, Nov 2008, San Diego, U.S.)

* Run-up for RRDtool 1.4 release in 2009

* Fully automated and minimally tested nightly releases of the 1.2, 1.3 and
  trunk code.


Planned Activities
------------------

* Release of RRDtool 1.4.0

* Continued support for 1.2.x, 1.3.x 

* Development of RRDtool 1.5

  The major feature of 1.5 will be the portable data format that allows to
  read and write rrd files across all platforms where rrdtool is supported.
  Preliminary information about this feature can be found in

    http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool-trac/wiki/PortableRrdFormat


Sponsorship 2009
----------------

The 2009 sponsorship program has been setup. If you have not signed up
yet, I would be thrilled to have you as a sponsor for the next year.
Please get in touch.

In 2008, RRDtool has been sponsored by these companies:

Gold Sponsors: 

* GroundWork Open Source - IT Monitoring & Network Solutions
  www.groundworkopensource.com

* ZenOSS - Open Source Enterprise Monitoring
  www.zenoss.com

Silver Sponsors:

* Host Europe - World Class Internet Hosting & Services
* ATC-Onlane - Automotive Remarketing
* terreActive - IT Security
* Google Inc., USA
* Hitflip Media Trading GmbH, Germany   
* op5 - Systems and Network Monitoring 
* Lancope, USA
* Sidarion, Switzerland

--
Tobi Oetiker, Olten, Switzerland
2008-11-24