Apparently the hardest
problem in monitoring is
graphing and dashboarding.
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What we’re doing
wrong
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Strip charts
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We have a problem
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Strip charts: the PHP hammer of graphing
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What can the
data tell us?
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What is the
distribution?
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It’s not a problem
with the tools
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Our approach
is tainted
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graphing problems we have
graphing
problems serviced
by strip charts
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Basic graph layout
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Black on white
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bounding box with
x + y axes labels
1 2 3 4 5
5
3
1
5
3
1
1 2 3 4 5
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Colour
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Differential
colour engine
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Maximum of 15
colours on-screen
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8%
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Adjust saturation,
not hue
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Use minimal hue
to call out data
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Fucking Pie Charts
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Experiment:
Compare segment sizes
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– William S. Cleveland, p.86 Principles of Graphing Data
This allows us to see very clearly that the pie
chart judgements are less accurate than the
bar chart judgements.
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Pie chart comparisons
are more error prone
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Pie not eaten
Pie eaten
The only time you should use a pie chart
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What did we learn?
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Democratisation of
graphing tool
development
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Scratch our itches
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Same poor UX,
better paint job
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We get the graphing
tools we deserve
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Nagios is
here to stay
(at least for ops)
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Inertia
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No
strong, compelling
alternative
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Sensu
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When I hear people say
“I'm not using Sensu because it's too complex”
I think
“and Nagios isn't hiding the same complexity from you?”