Converting to distributed nodes

[bkowalewski]

I want to convert a ZABBIX instance to a distributed node setup. It is currently monitoring around 850 nodes and has around 18000 items. Is it feasible to run the conversion from node 0 to node 1 on a database this big? It seems that what I've read talks about doing the conversion on a new database, but I need to do it on the existing db. I did try the conversion once, and after around 6 hours, cancelled it and then went through all the pain to get the updates backed out.

If it will work, how long should I expect it to run? This is a production monitoring instance and having it unavailable for that long is pretty scary.....

BTW: The reason I 'm doing this is because I created a proxy to monitor websites on the other side of a firewall and then found out that web monitoring still doesn't work with a ZABBIX proxy.

[nelsonab]

Unfortunately it looks like you're going to have to take a hit somewhere. Without knowing too much about your setup it's possible it could take a few more hours than the 6 you tried initially.

Probably the best option would be to take a copy of the DB onto another server, run the conversion then after the conversion import it into your current Zabbix DB. Yes you will have a data gap after you're done with the conversion but you while you are doing the conversion you can keep your Zabbix server running and can continue to receive alerts.

1) Here's a brief outline of how you might do this.
2) Stop Zabbix
3) Backup DB
4) Start Zabbix
5) Import DB to another MySQL Server (we'll call this the migration DB)
6) Install a Zabbix server which points to the migration DB
7) Perform the conversion using the Zabbix server which points to the migration DB
8) Backup migration DB
9) Stop production Zabbix
10) Backup Production DB
11) Import migration DB
12) Change production Zabbix configuration files
13) Start production Zabbix

[bkowalewski]

Many thanks for the reply. I was afraid of that. Is it a valid assumption that the bottleneck is MySQL?

Hopefully, someone has a large installation and can give me an estimate on how long it can take.... I'm worried that it just may not work.....

[dotxs]

We have about 120/150 nodes with around 10000 items. It took about 10 to 12 hours to convert the database. I started the conversion in the evening and the next morning it was finished.

You could shorten the conversion considerably by emptying the history tables and updating those in another database and reimporting them later into your production enviroment. Also a good tuned mysql server would speed up the process but most is just IO from going through the entire database en updating every record.

Dennis