Slide 1: A Zabbix Believer’s Story…… Jayesh Thakrar
Chief Architect, Mikoomimaking enterprise monitoring virtual
Slide 2: 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
Slide 3: Introduction
How It All Began….. : 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)
Choices: Commercial Players : Choices: Commercial Players
Choices: Nagios & Derivaties : Choices: Nagios & Derivaties www.groundworkopensource.com www.shinken-monitoring.org
Choices: Other Open Source : Choices: Other Open Source http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html#contents
Slide 8: Top Contenders: Nagios & Zabbix
Nagios: Brief Overview : 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 announcementhttp://www.nagios.org/news/77-news-announcements/230-nagios-is-redhats-standard-alerting-system
Nagios: Brief Overview : 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
Zabbix : Brief Overview : 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
Zabbix : Brief Overview : 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
Convinced that N to Z is more than Just a 90° rotation ?? : Convinced that N to Z is more than Just a 90° rotation ?? N Z Nagios to Zabbix
Slide 14: ZabbixArchitecture Overview
Zabbix Distributed Architecture : Zabbix Distributed Architecture Zabbix Server Zabbix Database Zabbix OS Agents Zabbix Distributed Nodes Proxy Servers or Proxy Agents Web Server Zabbix Node (Central) External monitoring data collectors External Scripts
Inside the Zabbix Server : Inside the Zabbix Server
Zabbix OS Agent : 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
Zabbix Monitoring Approach : 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 entitye.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
Zabbix: Built-in Templates : Zabbix: Built-in Templates
Zabbix: Template Items : Zabbix: Template Items
Zabbix: Item Configuration : Zabbix: Item Configuration
Slide 22: Zabbix Browser based GUI
GUI: Login Page : GUI: Login Page
GUI: Dashboard : GUI: Dashboard
GUI: Dashboard – Favorites : GUI: Dashboard – Favorites
GUI: Dashboard – Minimized : GUI: Dashboard – Minimized
GUI: Menu Options : GUI: Menu Options
GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular : GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular
GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular : GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular
GUI: Monitoring Data Graphs - Adhoc : GUI: Monitoring Data Graphs - Adhoc
GUI: Data Graphs – Pre-canned : GUI: Data Graphs – Pre-canned
GUI: Data Graphs – Custom : GUI: Data Graphs – Custom
GUI: Templates and Triggers : GUI: Templates and Triggers
GUI: Trigger Definitions : GUI: Trigger Definitions
GUI: Alert Listing : GUI: Alert Listing
GUI: Alert Emails : GUI: Alert Emails
GUI: User & Group Administration : GUI: User & Group Administration
GUI: Group Security : GUI: Group Security
Slide 39: enterprise monitoring made virtual
About mikoomi : 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 Products & Services : mikoomi Products & Services Zabbix Monitoring Framework MikoomiMonitoringAgents Services& Support Mikoomi value-add
mikoomi Products - Appliance : 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 Products – Agents : 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 Services : 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: Sizing and Capacity : 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