Archive for March, 2009

Moving Munin (Actually RRD) Graphs

Saturday, March 14th, 2009

I use Munin to do some server monitoring. Munin uses a central server that polls nodes, it collects system data and graphs it for you. I have moved a Munin server before: just create the appropriate configuration so that the server polls the same nodes, and copy the RRD files over from the database directory on the old server.

I ran into a problem doing this recently, and my logs were telling me:

Mar 13 21:10:43 - Unable to graph /usr/local/var/munin/y.com.au/x.y.com.au-open_inodes-max-g.rrd: This RRD was created on another architecture

The problem is that the RRD graphs that Munin stores its data files in are endian specific. That means you can shift between the same endian’ness but not to a different system. More specific to my problem, you can shift between 32 bit same endian’ness, but not between 32 bit and 64 bit! Obviously the shift was because I upgraded a server, wanted to retain the data, and found that because the new server was 64 bit, I can’t.

Now, that’s not quite true. You CAN retain the database data, but you have to dump it out of the RRD file manually and re-import it manually. I didn’t bother, but it would have been nice knowing this in advance anyway.

Posted in Informative | No Comments »

Telstra: Average of 15 Minutes Until You Speak To Someone!

Monday, March 2nd, 2009

I was reading the Whirlpool Broadband Survey 2008 Report tonight, and I found one section interesting. When measuring how long it took to get the right person on the phone (i.e. tech support person for tech support, sales person for sales who can actually sell you the right product etc.), how long did it take. Look at the first column. 24% of calls to Telstra resulted in an average of 20 minutes waiting, and 26% of 10 minutes waiting. Thats an average wait period of 15 minutes for 50% of calls to them. That’s also insane.
I had to break the table into 2 parts to fit it into this WordPress theme, I hope it still makes sense.

When calling customer support, how long did you have to wait on the phone (or talk to an operator) before you spoke to the right person?

Telstra Cable Telstra DSL Optus Cable Optus DSL iiNet Inter-node TPG West-net Exetel Adam
2.4% 1.3% 1.7% 2.7% 10.0% 8.4% 2.7% 33.5% 12.1% 20.3% Less than a minute
19.4% 18.4% 16.6% 19.3% 37.9% 39.2% 31.6% 48.7% 39.2% 50.0% 1 to 4 minutes
27.4% 25.9% 27.7% 23.5% 25.0% 27.6% 33.2% 12.1% 24.1% 19.2% 5 to 9 minutes
26.2% 26.6% 31.8% 28.3% 14.2% 15.9% 22.9% 3.6% 13.6% 7.1% 10 to 20 minutes
24.6% 27.7% 22.2% 26.2% 12.9% 8.9% 9.6% 2.1% 11.0% 3.4% over 20 minutes
aaNet Net-space Amnet iPrimus Telstra NextG AAPT Other Avg.
7.2% 2.2% 19.4% 3.8% 3.6% 2.6% 9.8% 9.7% Less than a minute
45.9% 26.0% 50.2% 20.3% 12.3% 26.6% 33.1% 33.3% 1 to 4 minutes
31.1% 27.9% 18.9% 32.3% 22.5% 23.4% 25.7% 25.2% 5 to 9 minutes
9.6% 24.7% 9.7% 26.6% 28.3% 21.4% 18.0% 18.1% 10 to 20 minutes
6.2% 19.2% 1.8% 17.1% 33.3% 26.0% 13.4% 13.7% over 20 minutes

Posted in Serious | No Comments »