RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine
• SEI Report
Publisher
Software Engineering Institute
Topic or Tag
Abstract
As tools for collecting flow data and other network metric information improve, we must more often consider how to present that data to end users for analysis. Existing approaches tightly couple generation of analytical products with the presentation of those products. Unfortunately, this tight coupling forces tradeoffs between analytical power and interface usability.
The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Environment (RAVE) provides data analysis and visualization capabilities independent of user interface. Applications may interact with RAVE analyses directly: using RAVE as a software library acting on local data, or remotely: communicating with a central server over the network. In both configurations, RAVE caches intermediate and final analytical products for use by multiple applications.
In this paper, we present RAVE as an analysis service provider. We discuss problems we encountered implementing RAVE and a web-based network monitoring interface that uses it. Finally, we identify places where RAVE can be improved and expanded, and ideas for possible enhancements that require further evaluation.
This paper was presented at FloCon 2006.
Cite This SEI Report
Groce, P., & Prevost, J. (2006, October 10). RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine. Retrieved August 17, 2026, from https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/.
@techreport{groce_2006,
author={Groce, Phil and Prevost, John},
title={RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine},
month={Oct},
year={2006},
institution={Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University},
url={https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/},
note={Accessed: 2026-Aug-17}
}
Groce, Phil, and John Prevost. "RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, October 10, 2006. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/.
P. Groce, and J. Prevost, "RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine," Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Software Engineering Institute, 10-Oct-2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/. [Accessed: 17-Aug-2026].
Groce, Phil, and John Prevost. "RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine." Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Software Engineering Institute, 10 Oct. 2006. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/. Accessed 17 Aug. 2026.
Groce, Phil; & Prevost, John. RAVE: The Retrospective Analysis and Visualization Engine. Software Engineering Institute. 2006. https://www.sei.cmu.edu/library/rave-the-retrospective-analysis-and-visualization-engine/
This content was created for a conference series or symposium and does not necessarily reflect the positions and views of the Software Engineering Institute.