At first glance RRDtool is extremely frustrating and needlessly complicated, but most of this sentiment comes from a long time familiarization with simpler tools such as MRTG and a personal struggle with RRDtools unique syntax. However, once these hurdles can be overcome the benefits of RRDtool over almost any other tool available become immediately apparent. RRDtool embraces a "work smarter, not harder" approach once it's understood, even though it seems a lot harder than smarter in the end. Being able to have absolute control over your graph output, being able to consolidate 10+ MRTG graphs into 1 RRDtool graph , and having unlimited ability to get exactly the values you want and even manipulate them before being recorded (thanks to scripting) make RRDtool the power monitoring tool of choice.

Hopefully this tutorial has helped you get over the basic hurdles that RRDtool throws in your way and provides a gateway for better understanding of the tool. For more information, including other tutorials, man pages, examples, updates, and to get the source yourself, please visit the RRDtool website. And if you like RRDtool, remember to show Tobi some love.