Note on RRDTool

RRDTool is a tool written by Tobias Oetiker, the same author of MRTG. It's a database engine that works the same way MRTG plain-text data files work.

Using a tool like 14all, MRTG can be used with RRDTool as it's backend rather than the flat text files. RRDTool has a number of other front-ends that perform the same function as MRTG as well.

Performance is the primary advantage to using RRDTool. Data is stored in a more efficient binary format, rather than in a flat file. Also, the graphs are generated only when they are needed (instead of every 5 minutes) which really saves on CPU and I/O utilization.

While this site primarily discusses MRTG, it is easy to integrate RRDTool as the backend.