Zabbix is an open source network monitoring software that allows users to monitor networks, servers and other network hardware and services. It works by having Zabbix agents installed on devices that report data to a central Zabbix server. The server then stores and analyzes the data to trigger alerts if issues arise. Key features include autodiscovery of devices, low-level discovery, agent-less monitoring, flexible notifications and dashboard visualizations. It provides an architecture with a server, agents and proxies to distribute the monitoring load across a network.
3. Zabbix is an enterprise open source
monitoring solution for networks and
applications.
It is designed to monitor and track the
status of various network services, servers,
and other network hardware.
4. HISTORY
● In 1998 product idea was thought
● In 2001 released first GPL
● In 2004 first stable release
● From then every year Zabbix has been releasing a
new version with more and more features for their
users. At current Zabbix 2.4 is the latest
version,released in april 2015
5. FEATURES
● High performance and capacity
● Autodiscovery of servers and network device
● Low level discovery
● Agent-less monitoring
● JMX monitoring, web monitoring
● Flexible email notification on pre-defined events
● User-defined visual screens, dashboard and graphs
● Secure user authentication
6. SIMILAR TOOLS
There are many network monitoring tools other than
Zabbix. Some of the top most popularly used are
● Nagios
● Cacti
● Top
● Munin
7. WHY ZABBIX
● Zabbix has graphs and stat collection via SNMP or
custom agent.
● Remote monitoring by zabbix proxy.
● Zabbix has web configuration
● Zabbix uses DB to store all the stats and
configuration, which is flexible in nature.
9. Zabbix server
Zabbix server is the central process of Zabbix
software. The server performs the polling and trapping
of data, it calculate triggers, sends notification to
users.
All the Zabbix agents and proxies report data on
availability and integrity of systems.
It uses MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Oracle to store
data and its backend is written in C and web frontend in
php.
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11. Zabbix Agent
Its deployed on a monitoring target i.e..the machine
which we want to monitor to monitor local resources and
applications( Hard drives, Memory, Processor stats etc.)
The agent gathers information locally and reports data
to zabbix server for further processing.
12. Checks or Mode
Zabbix agent works on two modes i.e..
● Active mode
● Passive mode
In Passive mode/check the agent respond to the data
request Zabbix server or proxy ask for, and then zabbix
agent sends back the result.
13. In Active mode/check the agent must first retrieve a
list of items from zabbix servers for independent
processing and then it will periodically sends new value
to the server.
Whether to perform Passive or Active mode is
configured by selecting the respective monitoring Item
type.
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15. Zabbix Proxy
Zabbix proxy can collect performance and availability
data on behalf of zabbix server. This way a proxy can
take on some load of collecting data and offload the
Zabbix server.
16. ELEMENTS
Zabbix server has certain important elements which are
essential in terms of monitoring a system or some
application
● HOST
● ITEM
● TRIGGER
● TEMPLATE
17. HOST
Zabbix hosts are the devices we wish to monitor, can be
a server, workstation etc.
Creating host is one of the first monitoring tasks in
zabbix. Group of hosts can be managed in a single Host
Group.
18. ITEM
Items are the ones that gather data from a host. Once
we have configured a host, we need to add some
monitoring items to start getting actual data.
There are different types of items which can be used
depending on the system we are monitoring
20. TRIGGERS
Triggers are the logical expression that evaluate data
gathered by item and represent the current system
state.
There are different levels of trigger which can be set
● Not classified
● Information
● Warning
● Average
● High
● Disaster
21. TEMPLATE
A template is a set of elements that can be conveniently
applied to manage monitoring of multiple hosts.
Elements may be items, triggers, graphs, screens etc.
Benefit of using templates is when something has to be
changed for all the hosts. Changing something on the
template level once will propagate the change to all the
linked hosts.
22. MAIN FUNCTIONS
● Automated device management
● Web monitoring
● Store data
● Alerts
● Visualize Dashboard, Graphs, Maps, Screens
23. AUTOMATED DEVICE MANAGEMENT
● Network discovery- Periodically search within ip_ports
and set actions like create/delete hosts or assign
template
● Auto-registration- Install Zabbix agent on a new
device provide Zabbix server location
24. WEB MONITORING
With Zabbix we can check several availability aspects of
web sites.
Following information is collected in any web scenario:
● Average download speed per second
● Number of step that failed
● Error occured
● Response time
● Response code
25. DATA STORAGE
● Relation database (MySQL, PostgreSQL, Oracle,
DB2, SQlite)
● Unlimited amount of historical data
● Reuse stored data at any time
26. ALERTS
Zabbix provides many alerts which can be set with
triggers for notification of any unwanted change,
notification methods are:
● Email
● SMS
● Alarms
● Jabber
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30. STRATEGY
● Stay open source
● Deliver improvements regularly
● Listen to customers needs
