Zabbix Server / Proxy scaling

[mjski]

Does anyone have any information / documents / testimonials related to how the Zabbix proxy scales out when handling larger number of agents?

Currently we have a single zabbix server, using MYSQL for the database;
We plan on using mysql for the proxy database as well, but were curious as to how many agents we can safely handle using a single Proxy.

Ultimately we plan on growing this out, but we have the following questions:

1. Is there any alteration of the data (ex. compression) upstream when the proxy updates the zabbix server?

2. How do you properly correlate the DataSenderFrequency to the number of agents you have reporting to the proxy? Best practices?

3. Are the database size requirements for the Proxy exactly the same as the Zabbix Server (in the context of the number of agents that the Proxy handles)?

4. Can anyone who has implemented a Zabbix Proxy in their infrastructure provide any of their experiences in regards to how many agents a proxy can safely handle? (provide hardware specs of proxy if possible)

5. Suggestions / Best practices on how to architect a zabbix infrastructure that can potentially handle over 5000 agents ...

Thanks,
Mike

[Alexei]

Does anyone have any information / documents / testimonials related to how the Zabbix proxy scales out when handling larger number of agents?

ZABBIX proxy based monitoring scales well up-to 10-20K of the agents depending on number of proxies, checks, frequency and used hardware.

Currently we have a single zabbix server, using MYSQL for the database;
We plan on using mysql for the proxy database as well, but were curious as to how many agents we can safely handle using a single Proxy.

It depends on hardware used for the proxy. If you use active checks only, a single Proxy would happily work with thousands of agents on a dual core CPU with fast storage.

1. Is there any alteration of the data (ex. compression) upstream when the proxy updates the zabbix server?

No compression. It is not actually required in most of the cases as the communication protocol is very very efficient.

2. How do you properly correlate the DataSenderFrequency to the number of agents you have reporting to the proxy? Best practices?

The more frequently you send data to the server, the less data you should keep locally. Use default settings or set it to 1 second for busy proxy.

3. Are the database size requirements for the Proxy exactly the same as the Zabbix Server (in the context of the number of agents that the Proxy handles)?

Proxy requires much less resources because it collects data only. It does not evaluate triggers, does not send notifications, etc etc.

4. Can anyone who has implemented a Zabbix Proxy in their infrastructure provide any of their experiences in regards to how many agents a proxy can safely handle? (provide hardware specs of proxy if possible)

It really depends on:

- what kind of checks you are using
- frequency of the checks

Remember that active checks are much more efficient due to lack of polling of proxy side.

5. Suggestions / Best practices on how to architect a zabbix infrastructure that can potentially handle over 5000 agents ...

Have you ever considered attending "ZABBIX for Large Environments" training? It is aimed exactly to you!