protected static function _timer_get_info($timer, $time)
    {
        if (isset(self::$timers[$timer]))
        {
            $timer = self::$timers[$timer];
            // NB: there is a high chance of breackage here, since we do not know
            //     what could have been set as KPI value, while pinba expects
            //     times (ms) as floating point
            if ( $timer["value"] == 0 )
            {
                $timer["value"] = $timer['data'];
            }
            return $timer;
        }
        return array();
    }