How Long to Install & Configure?

[Neural]

How much time does it take on average for an experience Linux admin to install and configure zabbix for the first time on 1 server?
My sys admin thinks Zabbix is too complicated and would take too long to install & configure.
We would mainly monitor basic resources as CPU, RAM, HDD, etc. and email out alerts. The environment is Linux Redhat ES3, Apache, Cold Fusion MX7, dual CPU with lots of RAM and HDD.

[Mike]

I first tested Zabbix whithout reading a line from the documentation (using a package for my distro).

After understanding the logic behind adding an host and linked items, it took me 2 or 3 hours to start monitoring more than 50 parameters (the default ones) on 3 servers, with nice screens and availability reports.

If you read the documentation, there is no doubt you will succeed without any problem !

Thinking than testing Zabbix can take time is a bad idea, cause it saves DAYS every month while using it

If you think Zabbix is hard to understand, do have a look to Nagios

Do not hesitate ... it's a really good investment

M

[Neural]

Thank you for your reply, which seems to be in reference to one of the two distros available and which you use, possibly suse.
My requirement is to run it on Redhat, and I have seen a few posts of people having trouble with Redhat.
So back to the same question, if I am running Redhat ES3 plus what I mentioned before, what is the expected install and configure time?
And, are there any Redhat specific packages or instructions?

[Mike]

I usually work with Debian (mostly) and RHEL/RHES.

I did not encounter more problems with RH after 2 months using Zabbix.

Install and configure time depends on the CPU more than on the sysadmin

(of course, most of messages in forums are related to problems, but do not forget that most of the users do not have any problem and don't post at all)

I'm sure the time you spend here asking for a "magical time evaluation" were enought to install and run zabbix for several servers

there is no answer to "what time for ...?" : it depends on you, not on Zabbix.

(Hope I'm not too rude, this is not the goal)

M

[Neural]

OK, thank you. Will assume there is not much difficulty.

[charles]

It's easy to install. Just do it. Make sure you install fping and make it suid.

You can get basic monitoring up very quickly. Getting all alerts etc working to your liking can take time (some of us still haven't got it right but hard linked temlates are making this easier ).

charles