Re: PCP Developers Meetup notes - 17/4/2013 - 08:00-10:30 (+1000)

["Frank Ch. Eigler" <fche@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi -

> I would like add here that I did have two distinct, but related needs here;
> 1. Make PCP useful in an an elastic computing environment, where hosts 
> startup and die without an prior arrangement. [...]

Some degree of prior arrangement must be present though, like what
head machine the various hosts are to report to.  What are the degrees
of freedom in your systems?


> 2. Make PCP a bit more open. Currently, PCP is a complete echo system, 
> form the collection of data to its consumption via tools like pmie, 
> pmchart, pmlogsummary, etc;. I believe there is a need for PCP to 
> provide an easy hookup for others to consume the data collected by PCP.

I'm surprised you have this impression.  PCP has always encouraged
open, documented two-way data flow - into and back out.  To get data
out of PCP, you write a shell script, a C program, or a python script,
connect it to an archive or a live pmcd, and extract data item by
item, and format it / send it to your consumer tool's receptacles.
There are not too many such exporter type programs already in the
toolkit, but they are not hard to write.


- FChE