Table of Contents
14. Distributed monitoring
Overview
Zabbix provides effective and reliable ways of monitoring distributed IT infrastructure. The two main solutions for large environments provided by Zabbix are:
Proxies can be used to collect data locally on behalf of a centralized Zabbix server and then report the data to the server. Nodes are full Zabbix servers that can be set up in a hierarchy of distributed monitoring.
Proxy vs. node
When making a choice between using a proxy or a node, several considerations must be taken into account.
| Proxy | Node | |
|---|---|---|
| Lightweight | Yes | No |
| GUI | No | Yes |
| Works independently | Yes | Yes |
| Easy maintenance | Yes | No |
| Automatic DB creation1 | Yes | No |
| Local administration | No | Yes |
| Ready for embedded hardware | Yes | No |
| One way TCP connections | Yes | Yes |
| Centralised configuration | Yes | No |
| Generates notifications | No | Yes |
[1] Automatic DB creation feature only works with SQLite. Other databases require a manual setup.