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Mikoomi, 2010
A Zabbix Believers Story
Jayesh Thakrar
Chief Architect, Mikoomi
making enterprise monitoring virtual
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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
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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?
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)
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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-standard-
alerting-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 ad-
hoc graphs on any monitored item
User-defined maps, screens and slide-shows
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Convinced that N to Z is more
than Just a 90 rotation ??
N Z
Nagios to Zabbix
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Zabbix
Architecture Overview
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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
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Inside the Zabbix Server
Poller Processes
watchdog
Poller Processes
housekeeper
Poller Processes
alerter
Poller Processes
poller
Poller Processes
httppoller
Poller Processes
pinger
Poller Processes
db_config_syncer
Poller Processes
db_data_syncer
Poller Processes
nodewatcher
Poller Processes
timer
Poller Processes
discoverer
Poller Processes
escalator
Zabbix Server 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
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

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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
Zabbix Monitoring Framework
Mikoomi
Monitoring
Agents
Services
&
Support
Mikoomi
value-add
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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
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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
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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