12.1. Introduction
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## 12.1. Introduction

The IDOUtils addon is based on NDOUtils originally written by Ethan Galstad, creator of Nagios(R), so the fundamentals apply to Nagios as well as to Icinga.

### 12.1.1. Purpose

The IDOUtils (Icinga Data Output Utils) addon is designed to store all configuration and event (status, historical) data from Icinga into a relational database. Storing information from Icinga in an RDBMS will allow for quicker retrieval and processing of that data. Icinga-Web relies on that data, as well as other addons such as NagVis. Furthermore, IDOUtils provides its own REST API where Icinga Mobile retrieves its data from.

Until now MySQL, Oracle and PostgreSQL are supported by IDOUtils. Support for other database servers may be added if there is sufficient user interest and even more user who are interested in testing.

### 12.1.2. Design Overview

The IDOUtils addon was designed to work for users who have:

- Single Icinga installations

- Multiple standalone or "vanilla" Icinga installations

- Multiple Icinga installations in distributed, redundant, and/or fail over environments

Data from each Icinga process (hereafter referred to as "instances") can be stored either in the same database or different databases than data from other Icinga instances.

Figure 12.1. Multiple instances

Although not yet supported, future development should allow for data from any given Icinga instance to be stored in multiple databases if desired.

Figure 12.2. Future development: One Instance, multiple databases

### 12.1.3. Instances

Each Icinga process, whether it is a standalone monitoring server, or part of a distributed, redundant, or fail over monitoring setup, is referred to as an "instance". In order to maintain the integrity of stored data, each Icinga instance must be labeled with a unique identifier or name.

You can choose the name of each Icinga instance to suit your needs. For instance, you could choose to name Icinga instances based on their geographical location...

Figure 12.3. Instance names based on geographical locations

Or you could name Icinga instances based on their purpose...

Figure 12.4. Instance names based on their purpose

How you name Icinga instances is up to you. The key point to remember is that each and every Icinga process must have its own unique instance name.

More information on how instance names come into play will be discussed in the next sections.

### 12.1.4. Installation

The installation of the IDOUtils is described in the Quickstart IDOUtils

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