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
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 3
How It All Began…..
• Needed to monitor IT systems - 24x7
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Are applications, web servers, databases
and other services up?
• Needed insight into performance
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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
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 5
Choices: Nagios & Derivaties
www.groundworkopensource.com
www.shinken-monitoring.org
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 6
Choices: Other Open Source
http://www.slac.stanford.edu/xorg/nmtf/nmtf-tools.html#contents
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 7
Top Contenders:
Nagios & Zabbix
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 8
Nagios: Brief Overview
• Pros
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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
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 9
Nagios: Brief Overview
• Cons
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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
Slide 10
Zabbix : Brief Overview
• Pros
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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
Slide 11
Zabbix : Brief Overview
• Pros
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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
© 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
Agents
Zabbix Node (Central)
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
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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
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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
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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
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 19
Zabbix: Template Items
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 20
Zabbix: Item Configuration
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 21
Zabbix
Browser based GUI
© Mikoomi, 2010
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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Slide 25
GUI: Dashboard – Minimized
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Slide 26
GUI: Menu Options
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Slide 27
GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular
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Slide 28
GUI: Monitoring Data Display - Tabular
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 29
GUI: Monitoring Data Graphs - Adhoc
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 30
GUI: Data Graphs – Pre-canned
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 31
GUI: Data Graphs – Custom
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 32
GUI: Templates and Triggers
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 33
GUI: Trigger Definitions
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 34
GUI: Alert Listing
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 35
GUI: Alert Emails
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 36
GUI: User & Group Administration
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 37
GUI: Group Security
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 38
enterprise monitoring made virtual
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 39
About mikoomi
• Mikoomi, the company ►
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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
Monitoring
Agents
Services
&
Support
Mikoomi
value-add
Zabbix Monitoring Framework
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 41
mikoomi Products - Appliance
• Mikoomi Monitoring Appliance
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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
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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
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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 ►
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10 – 20 servers +
20 – 40 databases or instances +
20 – 40 application instances
• Scales horizontally and vertically
© Mikoomi, 2010
Slide 45