collectd interval start?

[David J]

I have collectd writing to Kafka and would like to distribute the load to it. If I have 500 servers and set the Interval = 300 (5 mins). Can I configure it to have first batch of 100 servers start sending at time 12:00, second batch of 100 sending at time 12:01, third batch of 100 servers sending at time 12:02, etc... This will distribute the load on Kafka and allow for a continuous flow of data being processed instead of a possible flood.

From what I understand of collectd, the interval time starts when the service starts up on the machine? Would I just try to stager the start ups? This seems a little archaic and not precise.