strange rrd results via ncv

We recently rolled out a sun grid engine platform and I'm now trying to gather performance/usage information from it (if someone already has a collection of scripts this would also help me immensely).

I've written a perl script that passes job queue information to hobbit which outputs in the following format:

Running jobs : 7 Queued jobs : 0 Xfering jobs : 0 Errorstate jobs : 0

This should be ideal for ncv and I have therefore added ginfo=ncv to TEST2RRD in hobbitserver.cfg as well as NCV_qinfo="Runningjobs:GAUGE,Queuedjobs:GAUGE,Xferingjobs:GAUGE,Errorsta tejobs:GAUGE" on its own line because this is fluctuating data and not a counter.

The graph definition looks like this:

[qinfo]

    TITLE Q Info

    YAXIS Jobs

    DEF:running=qinfo.rrd:Runningjobs:AVERAGE

    DEF:queued=qinfo.rrd:Queuedjobs:AVERAGE

    DEF:xfering=qinfo.rrd:Xferingjobs:AVERAGE

    DEF:errorstate=qinfo.rrd:Errorstatejobs:AVERAGE

    LINE2:running#0000FF:Running Jobs

    LINE2:queued#00CC33:Queued Jobs

    LINE2:xfering#FF0000:Xfering Jobs

    LINE2:errorstate#FFFF00:Errorstate Jobs

    COMMENT:\n

    GPRINT:running:LAST:Running jobs \: %5.1lf%s (cur)

    GPRINT:running:MAX: \: %5.1lf%s (max)

    GPRINT:running:MIN: \: %5.1lf%s (min)

    GPRINT:running:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf%s (avg)\n

    GPRINT:queued:LAST:Queued jobs \: %5.1lf%s (cur)

    GPRINT:queued:MAX: \: %5.1lf%s (max)

    GPRINT:queued:MIN: \: %5.1lf%s (min)

    GPRINT:queued:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf%s (avg)\n

    GPRINT:xfering:LAST:Xfering jobs \: %5.1lf%s (cur)

    GPRINT:xfering:MAX: \: %5.1lf%s (max)

    GPRINT:xfering:MIN: \: %5.1lf%s (min)

    GPRINT:xfering:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf%s (avg)\n

    GPRINT:errorstate:LAST:Errorstate jobs \: %5.1lf%s (cur)

    GPRINT:errorstate:MAX: \: %5.1lf%s (max)

    GPRINT:errorstate:MIN: \: %5.1lf%s (min)

    GPRINT:errorstate:AVERAGE: \: %5.1lf%s (avg)\n

As you can see from the attached graph there are some rather strange results coming out and the rrd file contains values such as 3.9/4.8 when you really can't have .x of a job and the output from the script only ever shows whole numbers as it should.

Thanks for any help with what's going wrong.

Regards,

Craig Whilding

IT Systems Contractor

Mentor Graphics