This directory contains procedures for periodically extracting
 the various counters on network hardware devices (like the
 Ethernet interface) and storing them in an Rdb database for later
 analysis.

    A previous submission to the SIG tapes had procedures which
 put the counts into 'flat' RMS files.  This worked well enough,
 especially as I could use Datatrieve to read and analyze the
 data.  You could also write other programs, or use other
 utilities on those files.  However, I had to support a group
 which did not have Datatrieve or any other analysis utility. 
 They do have Macintoshes, and a spreadsheet program on the Mac
 can query an Rdb database on the VAX using Pathworks and DAL.  So
 I modified my procedure to store the data directly into an Rdb
 database.

    In doing this, I also was able to make a number of other
 improvements to the process, storing additional fields and
 handling some error conditions in a better way.  So I'm now using
 this process on machines which do have Datatrieve, which can also
 read the data in the Rdb database.

    To implement the procedure, you must have at least the
 Run-Time-Only version of Rdb on your system.  You also have to
 create an empty database from an empty backup of using
 CREATE.COM; or create one from scratch using QNA.RDO and RDO; or
 QNA.SQL and SQL$ (if you have a development license).  After
 that, just running the procedures or submitting them as batch
 jobs with a repeat time interval (I use one hour) should be all
 that is needed to collect the data.  I submit the jobs
 automatically as part of my system startup commands.

 Bart Z. Lederman
 System Resources Corp.
 Burlington, MA