The story of how Zabbix software became one of the worlds most demanded IT monitoring solutions
April 17, 2020
From the security of a South-American bank till automotive industry in Japan to global telecommunication grands, world’s biggest retail chains, airports and governments – this huge amplitude is the work of a relatively small IT company Zabbix. Company that is celebrating 15 years this week. Let’s see how a single-man created open-source software became one of the most popular IT monitoring tools.
15 years ago, on April 12 when the world celebrates the first human race into space, a company named “Zabbix” was founded. Zabbix software is an enterprise-class open source distributed monitoring solution. The main work sphere of the company is the development of an open-source monitoring software. Now it is widely used all over the world for such industries as – finance, aviation, retail, education, IT, governmental and non-profit organizations to monitor their IT infrastructure.
The founder, owner and creator of Zabbix – both the enterprise and software; is Alexei Vladishev. Initially he created the software for his employer back in 1998 and soon realized the potential of the solution and started to develop it as an open-source software that can be shared with everyone.
Transparency as a challenge for quality
The crucial point in this story was the decision to make this software open-source and launch its first version under GPL licence. That means that the software is available for everyone to freely download, check and adjust, if necessary. “For me it was a natural choice – to provide access for this software to everyone and make it transparent – so everyone can audit the quality of this software and make sure – it is reliable. I would say that this is one of the main outcomes from these fifteen years – Zabbix is available for everyone – from global corporations to small and medium enterprises and individuals,” says A. Vladishev about his choice made back in the nineties. The second important choice is the decision to make a company and support the product with technical services. A. Vladishev is grateful to his friends and ex-colleagues that advised him for the commercialization of the product. The quality of the product speaks for itself - there have been spent almost zero cents to advertise it during these years. The popularity of the monitoring software spreads through the word of mouth matter. And this brings the key value not only for the founder and CEO, but also for the whole team – value of the product quality. “Zabbix monitoring solution is not only my product which has transformed into an enterprise, I see this mainly as an investment for security of the business and IT world,” says A. Vladishev.
Centered in Northern Europe, operating worldwide
Zabbix is headquartered in Riga, Latvia’s capital city where most of Zabbix employees work. There are branches of Zabbix established in Japan, USA and since last year – also in Russia. Before the Covid-19 pandemic lots of Zabbix consultants travelled all around the world to consult and train Zabbix users. One of the key success factors has been creating a network of partners – local IT experts that offer Zabbix services in more than 20 languages globally.
Celebration during the pandemic
Due to the pandemic caused by COVID-19, Zabbix has also faced different challenges. However, 90% of the company activities stayed unchanged, and Zabbix continues to work. The next day after the quarantine period was officially announced, 70+ Zabbix employees started to work remotely from their cozy home offices. While the development process happens as usual, we’ve been forced to stop our professional training and postpone conferences planned in Brazil, Germany, Czech Republic, and Russia.
After four weeks of successful remote work, the team has met online with a single purpose – to mark the 14th of April and celebrate the 15th birthday of Zabbix. There was no huge fancy cake, but there were a lot of smiles, jokes, and warm wishes.
About Zabbix Company
Zabbix LLC is based in the United States, Europe and Japan. Its CEO, owner and Zabbix product creator is Alexei Vladishev.
The basic work sphere of the Zabbix LLC is development of open source software for monitoring of networks and applications. Apart from that the company offers a wide range of professional services designed to fit every customer's unique business demand including implementation, integration, custom development and consulting services as well as various training programs.
Zabbix team’s mission is to make a superior monitoring solution available and affordable for all.
The company's flagship product is Zabbix, one of the most popular open source monitoring software in the world. It is already used by a vast number of companies, that have chosen it due to the real scalability, high and robust performance, ease of use and extremely low costs of ownership.
The first version of Zabbix was released in 2001. Zabbix as a company was established in 2005 in order to provide expert technical support services.
There are world-recognized telco, finance, educational, retail, health care companies and government institutions from different countries among Zabbix customers. Many of them are included in the Fortune 500 list.
Contact:USA: 1-877-4-ZABBIX
Europe: +371-6778-4742
Japan: +81 3-4405-7338
Russia: +7 (495) 369-54-95
[email protected]
www.zabbix.com