Enterprise-class

Monitoring
Solution for
Everyone

ALL-IN-ONE
OPEN-SOURCE
DISTRIBUTED MONITORING

1
CONTENTS
Some Facts
About Zabbix Software .............................................. 2
Main Functions ........................................................ 3 • “Best of Breed” – 2nd time nominee by Gartner
Architecture ............................................................. 4 among the world’s best low cost monitoring
Installation Requirements ............................................. 5 solutions
Advantages of Zabbix Solution .................................... 6 • Over 1 million downloads every year
Release Cycle .......................................................... 6 • More than 100,000 users and growing
Useful Sources ......................................................... 7 • Zabbix interface is available in more than 25 of the
most commonly used languages

About Zabbix Software

Zabbix Monitoring Solution is the ultimate enterprise-level open-source monitoring software. It is designed for monitoring
availability and performance of IT infrastructure components. Zabbix is capable of monitoring an unlimited number of metrics
and provide sophisticated analytics on the health of IT infrastructure. Being able to identify the “source” of an IT system problem
allows Zabbix users to act fast and reduce costs associated with downtimes.
Network Automation. Remote commands in Zabbix – it is a powerful mechanism for smart proactive monitoring. If you
configure an action with remote commands, Zabbix will automatically execute a certain predefined script for problem solving.
Global Recognition. Zabbix Monitoring Solution is used worldwide by a vast number of companies that have chosen Zabbix
due to its real scalability, high and robust performance, ease of use, flexibility, and, of course, extremely low total cost of
ownership (TCO).
Read more about Zabbix Software on http://www.zabbix.com/product.php

Zabbix at a Glance
Zabbix is the ultimate enterprise-class monitoring solution with the following characteristics:

• All-in-one solution
• Monitors performance and availability of networks, applications and cloud resources
• Supports small to very large distributed environments
• Supports wide variety of architectures
• Sends notifications or executes remote commands in case of current or potential problems
• Rich visualization capabilities, featured by dashboard, custom graphs and network maps
• Provides distributed monitoring options with the use of Zabbix proxies

Zabbix is a completely open-source* product with no vendor lock-in, suitable for use in environments of any size.

* Zabbix Monitoring Solution is released under the GNU General Public License version 2 (GPLv2).

Reasons to Choose Zabbix

A solid monitoring solution True open-source software Scaling to large

for multiple OS platforms • No vendor lock-in environments
• Cross-platform • Free for commercial and • Able to process more than
• Extensive customisation non-commercial use 3,000,000 checks per
capabilities of Zabbix • Phenomenal Zabbix minute
allow to integrate it in any community support from • Scales up to hundreds of
environment thousands of members thousands of monitored
• Modularity and flexibility around the world devices
• Reliable commercial support

2
Main Functions
Data gathering
Zabbix offers great performance for data gathering and can be scaled to very large environments. Data is gathered
using various methods, including Zabbix native agents and agentless options: SNMPv1, SNMPv2, SNMPv3, IPMI,
WMI, trappers, SSH, Telnet, web checks.

TM

Data storage Notification

Once Zabbix has gathered the data it doesn’t throw Zabbix allows not only to collect, store and analyze
it away, but stores it for later analysis, which can be information about monitored environment, but also to
reused further for billing, custom reporting, forecasting inform responsible personnel about occurred incidents
or any other purpose. Several methods of collecting through a variety of notification methods:
performance and availability information about
• by e-mail
monitored infrastructure are available in Zabbix:
• by SMS
• Agentless monitoring • by Jabber
• Zabbix agent • further notifications can be scripted and customized
• SNMP and IPMI agents depending on the context (examples: Skype, instant
• Custom monitoring messaging, voice, etc.)
• VMware monitoring
Powerful escalation module supports building of
• Web scenarios
complicated workflows to assist delivering only
• Java applications
relevant alert information to responsible personnel at
• Database monitoring
the right time.
• Calculated and aggregate information
• Internal performance

Visualisation
Zabbix offers rich visualisation capabilities that allow working with your data faster and smarter. Zabbix visualisation
provides:
• User-defined screens and slide shows
• Mapping
• Graphing (including pie charts)

Full list and details on Zabbix functionality are available at http://www.zabbix.com/functionality.php

3
Architecture

Zabbix Proxy
Zabbix proxy is a special process that
collects data on behalf of Zabbix server,
taking some processing load off the server.
Zabbix proxy runs as a daemon process.

Zabbix Agent
Zabbix agent is a process deployed on
monitoring targets to actively monitor local
resources and applications (hard drives,
memory, processor statistics, network, file
systems, etc).
The agent gathers operational information
locally and reports data to Zabbix server
for further processing.
Zabbix agents are extremely efficient
because of use of native system calls for
gathering information.

Zabbix Agent | Modes

Passive mode Active mode

Advantages of passive mode: Advantages of active mode:

1. Ease of setup 1. Can be used behind NAT
2. Support for data collection with flexible intervals 2. Data buffering
3. Intuitiveness in communication 3. Reduce load on Zabbix server. No load on Zabbix
(request <-> response). pollers
4. Simpler troubleshooting 4. More secure

4
Installation Requirements
CPU | Examples of hardware configuration
Zabbix server and Zabbix database may require significant CPU resources depending on number of monitored parameters
and chosen database engine.

Name Platform Vendor / Database Monitored

Server model hosts

Small CentOS Virtual Appliance SQLite 100

Medium CentOS HP ProLiant DL320e Gen8 E3- MySQL InnoDB 500

1240v2 1P 8GB-U P222 Hot Plug
4 LFF 350W 1TB x 2 SAS 7.2 PS
Server
(675422-001)

Large Red Hat Enterprise HP ProLiant DL360e Gen8 E5- RAID10 MySQL InnoDB or >1000
Linux 2440v2 2P 64GB-R B320i/512 8 PostgreSQL
SFF 600GBx4 6G SAS 10K 460W
RPS Svr/S-Buy
(747094-S01)

Very large Red Hat Enterprise HP ProLiant DL380p Gen8 E5- Fast RAID10 MySQL InnoDB >10000
Linux 2650 2.0GHz 8-core 2P 256GB-R or PostgreSQL
P420i/2GB 800GBx4 SSD FBWC
750W RPS US Server
(709943-001)

Software | Back-end storage

Zabbix is built around a modern Apache or Nginx web server, leading database engines, and PHP scripting language.
Using Zabbix it is possible to store information in different databases, including MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQLite and IBM DB2.

Sizing
The table below contains real examples of required disc sizing for the most commonly used parameters:

Example of parameters (size) Amount of history Amount of trends Amount of

(per month) (per year) configuration

100 hosts 10 GB 2 GB 1 GB

1 000 hosts 80 GB 17 GB 1.3 GB

10 000 hosts 690 GB 150 GB 3 GB

100 000 hosts 4.5 TB 1.3 TB 5 GB

* Assuming 50 metrics per host checked every 60 seconds

5
Advantages of Zabbix Solution
Technical benefits
• Quick and easy installation
• All-in-one solution
• Real-time monitoring
• Suitable for environments of any size
• Flexibility
• Instant notification mechanism
• Anomaly detection
• Superb community support
Release Cycle
Zabbix team is committed to a program of scheduled releases on a six-month basis. Every six months Zabbix releases a new
stable version.
The continuous frequency of Zabbix releases
During every year and a half Zabbix releases:
1 Zabbix LTS (Long Term Support) release.
Zabbix LTS releases are supported for Zabbix
customers during five (5) years i.e. 3 years of Full
Support (general, critical and security issues) and
2 additional years of Limited Support (critical and
security issues only). Zabbix LTS version release will
result in change of the first version number.
Read more about Zabbix Life Cycle & Release Policy at http://www.zabbix.com/life_cycle_and_release_policy.php
6
Business benefits
• Low TCO
• No vendor lock-in
• Satisfaction with performance and scalability
• Network visibility
• Access to professional support services
• Improvement of customer experience
• Reliable commercial support
2 Zabbix Standard releases.
Standard Zabbix releases are supported for Zabbix
customers during six (6) months of Full Support
(general, critical and security issues) until the next
Zabbix stable release, plus one (1) additional month
of Limited Support (critical and security issues only).
Zabbix Standard version release will result in change
of the second version number.
Useful Sources
Installation
Zabbix software can be installed in your environment. Installation services are available for those customers who would like
Zabbix to be installed by an experienced Zabbix software engineer.
See Turn-Key Solution services at http://www.zabbix.com/services.php

Distribution Media
Zabbix is available in ready-to-deploy packages for Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Debian and Ubuntu. Visit our download
page at http://www.zabbix.com/download.php

Documentation
Zabbix documentation is freely accessible and available online and provides all important information you may need to know
about Zabbix software. Details at http://www.zabbix.com/documentation.php

Professional Services
Zabbix Team offers easy access to a number of Zabbix professional services, including software installation, integration, custom
development, consulting and training. For more information visit http://www.zabbix.com/services.php

Zabbix Partner Program is built to extend Zabbix services locally through a trusted network of professional IT companies. With
Zabbix global partnering program we ensure professional support to our diverse customer community in local languages
worldwide. More information at http://www.zabbix.com/partner_program.php

7
Zabbix SIA Worldwide +371 6778 4742
Dzelzavas Street 117 USA (Toll-free) +1-877-4-ZABBIX
Riga, LV-1021 Japan +81-3-6895-7527
Latvia Fax +371 6778 4741
Web www.zabbix.com
E-mail sales@zabbix.com