About the Statistics
The graphs here are drawn based on data from the central filers that provide the MWS filestore. This data is then analysed further to categorise it by the type of machine and type of user making the connection.
This connection data includes all machines that connect to MWS filestore for whatever reason; MWS machines, non-MWS systems (including Mac and Linux systems) that connect using CIFS, any users connecting via AppsAnywhere, and PCFTP use. The connection data is filtered to remove entries that aren't related to user-activity - e.g. internal connections between servers or processes running on the servers themselves.
Graphs are based either on the type of machine, based on the IP range it is connecting from, or the type of user (staff/student/etc)
- "Day" graphs use 5 minute data (i.e. each pixel represents 5 minutes), and cover around 40 hours.
- "Week" graphs use 30 minute data, and cover around 11 days.
- "Month" graphs use 2 hour data, and cover around 45 days.
- "Year" graphs use 1 day data, and cover around 500 days.
- "Decade" graphs use 7 day data, and cover around 9.5 years. (It's not quite a decade, but there isn't any useful time unit between 1 day and 1 week)
Shorter term graphs display the actual count, or the average and max counts. Longer term graphs (year/decade) display max and min counts. This is because averaging over long periods isn't a particularly useful measure.
There are also "Detail" graphs, which are a hangover from an attempt to use 1 minute data (i.e. 1 pixel = 1 minute), derived from obtaining connection data every minute. This turns out to be not that useful, and results in too much data to be worthwhile. Detail graphs can still be drawn, but they use 5 minute data stretched out.
These graphs represent the concurrent usage and how that changes over time and what its peaks and troughs are. They are not graphs of the total usage. This is an important distinction - if you're looking at, say, a point the yearly graph for staff usage, and the maximum usage reaches 2700, it doesn't mean that only 2700 people used the MWS that day. In fact far more people may have used the MWS that day. What it does mean is that at some point during that day there were 2700 people connected to the central servers concurrently, and that was the peak value for that day.