Critical to successful systems management is the ability to detect
trends within the vast amounts of both technical and business metrics
available. The current crop of tools bring with them a number of
disadvantages, from the weaknesses associated with the commonly used
RRD backends to the presentation and management interfaces which
haven't kept up to date with the volume and complexity of modern
systems, or the advances in interface design. This talk explores two
projects which represent the vanguard of a new breed of capacity
planning tools - Visage and Reconnoiter. We'll discuss the design
objectives and architecture and look at how to go about implementing
them in practice. The talk will conclude with suggestions for
improvements to the current approaches, which should give devops ample
opportunity to experiment and contribute to the community.
