Data logging?

[JavaLaurence]

Does anyone have a stack running 24/24, 365/365, and logging sensor values or other system state?

 

I'd like to log all kinds of stack inputs, and wonder what kind of approach could work (beyond just dumping data in a plain file).

 

I already encountered RRDTool.. anyone using this?

[CD108]

Log to a SQL Server. I write all the sensors as the values come in to a table for viewing live values, then log each sensor value to a log table every minute.

 

My sensors have been logging for months

[JavaLaurence]

My take on data logging is that it's about both persistent storage and graph-centric visualization. A plain database doesn't give me any visualization. RRDTool looks attractive because it can produce very nice graphs, but it's not exactly trivial to use.

 

With your approach, where does your DB live physically? What did you do to avoid having your DB trigger hard disk activity constantly? My "controller" is my iMac, and I don't really fancy wearing out its main disk.

[CD108]

It lives on a small mini itx atom based server with a cheap laptop HD. Over a year now reading/writing approx 50 times/sec to the SQL database with no problems. It also hosts a website where I can display the data however i choose - i have a full data historian which took me about a day to write in asp.net (c#).

 

A small program handles all the incoming data and processes it based on a customisable rule set - Also administered by the website. The program can send/receive http commands so anything connected via LAN(or WAN) can be added to the sensor network