A Zabbix Believers Story
Jayesh Thakrar Chief Architect, Mikoomi making enterprise monitoring virtual
Mikoomi, 2010
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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
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Introduction
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How It All Began..
Needed to monitor IT systems - 24x7
Are applications, web servers, databases and other services up? Visibility into current and historical performance and load Quantifying, charting and trending of load, performance and utilization
Needed insight into performance
Tool for HelpDesk (Level-1 Support)
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Choices: Commercial Players
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Choices: Nagios & Derivaties
www.groundworkopensource.com
www.shinken-monitoring.org
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Choices: Other Open Source
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html#contents
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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-standardalerting-system
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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
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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
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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 adhoc graphs on any monitored item User-defined maps, screens and slide-shows
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Nagios to Zabbix
N
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Z
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Convinced that N to Z is more than Just a 90 rotation ??
Zabbix Architecture Overview
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Zabbix Distributed Architecture
External monitoring data collectors
Zabbix Node (Central) Web Server Zabbix Server Zabbix OS Agents
Zabbix Distributed Nodes
Zabbix Database
External Scripts Proxy Servers or Proxy Agents
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Inside the Zabbix Server
Zabbix Server Processes
watchdog Poller Processes housekeeper Poller Processes alerter Poller Processes poller Poller Processes httppoller Poller Processes discoverer Poller Processes pinger Poller Processes db_config_syncer Poller Processes db_data_syncer Poller Processes nodewatcher Poller Processes timer Poller Processes Pollerescalator Processes
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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
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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 = monitored entity e.g. hosts, applications, databases, etc. Define new hosts and link to template Customize triggers and actions if necessary
Hosts
Data Collection by Server, Agent or Proxy
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Zabbix: Built-in Templates
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Zabbix: Template Items
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Zabbix: Item Configuration
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Zabbix Browser based GUI
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GUI: Login Page
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GUI: Dashboard
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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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GUI: Data Graphs Pre-canned
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GUI: Data Graphs Custom
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GUI: Templates and Triggers
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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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enterprise monitoring made virtual
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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
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mikoomi Products & Services
Mikoomi Monitoring Agents
Services & Support
Mikoomi value-add
Zabbix Monitoring Framework
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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
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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
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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
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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
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