A Zabbix Believer’s

Story……

Jayesh Thakrar
Chief Architect, Mikoomi
making enterprise monitoring virtual

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 1
Topics
1. Introduction
2. Comparison : Nagios v/s Zabbix
3. Zabbix : Architecture Overview
4. Zabbix : Browser based GUI
5. Mikoomi : Open-source Value-Add
Agents & Consulting Services

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 2
Introduction

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Slide 3
How It All Began…..

• Needed to monitor IT systems - 24x7

► Are applications, web servers, databases
and other services up?
• Needed insight into performance
► Visibility into current and historical
performance and load
► Quantifying, charting and trending of load,
performance and utilization
• Tool for HelpDesk (Level-1 Support)
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 4
Choices: Commercial
Players

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Choices: Nagios &
Derivaties

www.groundworkopensource.com

www.shinken-monitoring.org

© Mikoomi, 2010
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Choices: Other Open
Source

http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html#contents
© Mikoomi, 2010
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Top Contenders:
Nagios & Zabbix

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Nagios: Brief Overview

• Pros
► Popular and well-known
► Basis for many other open source systems
► Template-based and object oriented
inheritance
► Based out of Minneapolis, US
► Boost (?) by RedHat announcement
http://www.nagios.org/news/77-news-announcements/230-nagios-is-redhats-standard-
alerting-system

© Mikoomi, 2010
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Nagios: Brief Overview

• Cons
► Requires significant effort for setup
► Setup, admin and configuration = text file
based
► Monitoring data stored in single flat file
(or via pipe into database)
► High I/O on data file from monitoring and UI
► Configuration change require reload
► “Primitive” graphing and monitoring UI

© Mikoomi, 2010
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Zabbix : Brief Overview

• Pros
► Agent and agent-less monitoring
► SNMP support
► Template based
► Scalable, distributed architecture
► Built-in UNIX, log-file, SNMP and URL monitoring
► Easy to extend with plug-ins or agents
► Active development
► Database based monitoring data storage
► Thresholds and alerting separate from monitoring

© Mikoomi, 2010
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Zabbix : Brief Overview

• Pros
► Multiple items or attributes per monitored entity
► Different items of an entity can be monitored by
different mechanisms
► Can define alerts based on comparison of current
item value with historical values, averages, etc.
► Can build dependencies between monitored entities
► Pre-canned (template-based) graphs as well as ad-
hoc graphs on any monitored item
► User-defined maps, screens and slide-shows
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 12
Nagios to Zabbix

N Z
Convinced that N to Z is
more than Just a 90°
rotation ??
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 13
 Zabbix
Architecture
Overview
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 14
Zabbix Distributed
Architecture
External monitoring data collectors

Zabbix OS
Zabbix Node (Central) Agents

Web Server Zabbix Server

Zabbix
Distributed
Nodes

Zabbix Database External Scripts

Proxy Servers or
Proxy Agents

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 15
Inside the Zabbix Server
Zabbix Server Processes

Pollerwatchdog
Processes pinger
Poller Processes

housekeeper
Poller Processes db_config_syncer
Poller Processes

alerter
Poller Processes db_data_syncer
Poller Processes

poller
Poller Processes nodewatcher
Poller Processes

Pollerhttppoller
Processes timer
Poller Processes

Pollerdiscoverer
Processes Pollerescalator
Processes

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 16
Zabbix OS Agent

• OS-level agents for most popular

platforms
► Linux
► AIX, HP-UX, Solaris
► MacOS
► Windows
• OS agents can run external programs
to complement / enhance monitoring
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 17
Zabbix Monitoring
Approach
• Templates
► Define new or modify existing templates
► Contains monitoring data elements called items
► Contains thresholds (triggers) and actions on item
► Collection of pre-defined graphs using items
• Hosts
► Hosts = monitored entity
e.g. hosts, applications, databases, etc.
► Define new hosts and link to template
► Customize triggers and actions if necessary
• Data Collection – by Server, Agent or Proxy
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 18
Zabbix: Built-in
Templates

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Slide 19
Zabbix: Template Items

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Slide 20
Zabbix: Item
Configuration

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Slide 21
 Zabbix
Browser based
GUI
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Slide 22
GUI: Login Page

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Slide 23
GUI: Dashboard

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Slide 24
GUI: Dashboard –
Favorites

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GUI: Dashboard –
Minimized

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GUI: Menu Options

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GUI: Monitoring Data Display -
Tabular

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GUI: Monitoring Data Display -
Tabular

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GUI: Monitoring Data Graphs -
Adhoc

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Slide 30
GUI: Data Graphs – Pre-
canned

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Slide 31
GUI: Data Graphs – Custom

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Slide 32
GUI: Templates and
Triggers

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Slide 33
GUI: Trigger Definitions

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GUI: Alert Listing

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GUI: Alert Emails

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GUI: User & Group
Administration

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GUI: Group Security

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Slide 38
enterprise monitoring made
virtual

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 39
About mikoomi

• Mikoomi, the company -

► Develops, distributes and supports
open-source monitoring solutions
► Provides custom development and
consulting around monitoring and high
availability
► Strong believer in open-source –
as a consumer and as a producer

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 40
mikoomi Products &
Services

Mikoomi Services Mikoomi

value-
Monitoring & add
Agents Support

Zabbix Monitoring Framework

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 41
mikoomi Products -
Appliance
• Mikoomi Monitoring Appliance
► Appliance = virtual machine template
► Contains Zabbix + Ubuntu + best practices
► Zabbix = Best open source monitoring
► Ubuntu = One of the best Linux variants
► Quick, easy & flexible to deploy
► Up and running in less than 60 minutes

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 42
mikoomi Products –
Agents
• Mikoomi Monitoring Agents
► Add-on monitoring capabilities for databases,
application servers, software components, custom
apps
► Embed deep product-specific expertise and
monitoring best practices
► Covers key health and performance data
► Open-source makes them extensible
► Minimally “intrusive” on monitored entity
► Java JVM and DB2 released
► WebSphere, Tomcat, SQL Server, Oracle, ActiveMQ
and others planned for release
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 43
mikoomi Services

• Services
► Deployment, implementation and training
► Consulting & custom development
► Develop custom monitoring for software
vendors to help operations and monitoring of
their products

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 44
mikoomi: Sizing and
Capacity
• Single node (appliance)
with 2 CPUs + 2 GB memory supports
monitoring a “sizable” IT environment -
► 10 – 20 servers +
► 20 – 40 databases or instances +
► 20 – 40 application instances

• Scales horizontally and vertically

© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 45