Recording snapsnot data for efficient time series charts

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1

I'm used to Munin for creating time series charts of all kinds -- all it requires is that one or more values be accessible to Munin at a given time, and then Munin will store that value in a database, and visualise it in various charts. We're badly missing this feature in Metabase - is it supported? What is this functionally called?

For Metabase to do this, it would need to manage it's own tables with records of snapshot data. For example: Metabase is managing our user login database, and we want to chart data which is only available as a snapshot at a given time, like how many users are currently logged in. So Metabase would need to query the user database, get the number of logged-in users, store that value with a timestamp, and then plot the data from that second database in a chart over time.

Until now we can create most of the charts we want without this secondary database / time-series storage, but it puts massive extra load on our primary databases, unnecessarily. Munin seems simple in the approach it takes, and I've used that system for around 10 years. For us this is critical functionality for a data visualisation app like Metabase.

2

Hi @samtuke
Metabase does not store your data. It just visualizes what it's connected to.
So if I understand you correctly, then you should store the information you want Metabase to access (perhaps on different database or not, and perhaps just a view, difficult to say).

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3

Yes. This feature adds so much power to the product. I'm surprusrd it's not already a core feature to be honest. I'll find a place to add the feature request.

Thanks for your reply!

4

@samtuke There's a request for something to store historical data, which can then be used later on:
https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/8359 - upvote by clicking :+1: on the first post

5

Thanks! Done