pulling data via hobbitdxboard

[Aiello, Steve (GE, Corporate, consultant)]

Hello all,

I have been tasked with working a client app for users. Currently it is
basically a yahoo widget that feeds off the bbgen nstab page. We monitor
alot of sevices, and from that we have configured a good number of
Alternate PageSets. basically providing a focused Hobbit/BBGen display
for each group.

Now those groups can run a yahoo widget that parses the nstab.html for
all Critical alerts. And that seems to be working rather well. But this
got me to thinking. There is alot more data contained in the
hobbitdxboard output, that is much easier to use. Plus by using the
hobbitdxboard, users/groups can customize their query much more.

So basic questions I have:
1. is there a way to get to the hobbitdxboard data, other than using the
bb command ? Would be great if there was a web cgi for this.  If there
isn't I am sure I can whip up something using perl.

2. The question of load, should it be a concern ? I know all of the
hobbit data is stored in memory, so I didn't think this would be a
problem. Also I was thinking, that if I write a perl cgi, I could cache
the output of the query for 1 minute or so.  Since normal client update
period is 5 minutes...  caching the hobbitdxboard output for a minute
could save on any load.

Thoughts ?
 ~ Steve