Graphite consists of a storage backend and a web-based visualization frontend.
Client applications send streams of numeric time-series data to the Graphite
backend (called carbon), where it gets stored in fixed-size database files
similar in design to RRD. The web frontend provides 2 distinct user interfaces
for visualizing this data in graphs as well as a simple URL-based API for
direct graph generation.

Graphite's design is focussed on providing simple interfaces (both to users
and applications), real-time visualization, high-availability, and enterprise
scalability.