distributed and redundant monitoring?

[igori]

Our company is choosing the monitoring system right now. Zabbix seems to be pretty fine, but there's one question left: does Zabbix suport subj?
Thank you a lot.

[James Wells]

Greetings,

The answer to your question is yes and no. Zabbix can be used in a distributed fashion, out of the box, by using the Zabbix agents in active mode, however, it is not truly distributed. In this mode, the agent starts up on each client, reads it's configuration file, then contacts a server and asks for a list of checks it is supposed to perform. The agent then goes off and performs those checks, sending the results back to the server that it recieved it's configuration from.

As for redundancy, at present there is a very minor amount of redundancy capability built into it. You are able to to configure an Zabbix agent to allow multiple servers to query them directly, however, it is not truly redundant in the data center terminology.

Having said that though, there are a couple of patches that have been submitted lately that provide the beginnings of these capabilities, though they are not heavily tested yet.

EDIT: Hit tab / return. I started deploying Zabbix to my data center about 2 months ago and have been tweeking / tuning it for my needs as I go. So far, I am very happy with it overall. Please keep in mind though that this is still a fairly young product, and there are still many issues to work out. Having said that, I have no problem recommending Zabbix to people who are willing to put the time and effort into making it what they need.

[igori]

Thanks. And can you give some more info concerning these patches?

[igori]

Yep, and just some more questions:
Can servers communicate to each other?
So, say, I need to create the following monitoring process:
A,B,C are monitoring servers, distributed all over the world, seeing each other.
D is the monitored host.
notifications should be sent only in case when D is not responding to all of them (A && B && C).
Can it be done by means of Zabbix?

Thanks a lot.

[James Wells]

Thanks. And can you give some more info concerning these patches?

Not sure where I saw the other patches, will have to search around the forums here, but one of the patches I did is;
PATCH: Preliminary Multiple Zabbix Servers

Please note, that I haven't had time to complete the UI interface to support my patch yet, but it is working on properly on my network at home.

Can servers communicate to each other?
So, say, I need to create the following monitoring process:
A,B,C are monitoring servers, distributed all over the world, seeing each other.
D is the monitored host.
notifications should be sent only in case when D is not responding to all of them (A && B && C).
Can it be done by means of Zabbix?

Again, yes and no. The default Zabbix server does not support multiple servers using the same database, however, through a combination of the patch listed above and SNMP trapping or running Zabbix Agent in active mode on the servers, they can be made to pretend to communitate. For example, using my patch, you could have Zabbix-B, send SNMP triggers or Zabbix Agent active responses to Zabbix-A to notify it of certain condition changes. Not the most elegant way, but will work until we get Zabbix to be data center ready.

The logic to achieve what you are looking for could get pretty hairy, but it can be done through Zabbix.

When I get more time, there are two main projects I am working on for Zabbix, both of which will help you out in the long run;
1. Data Center Management UI. This will bring various current functions together to provide a data center view of servers.
2. Improved Server Redundancy. The idea here is to extend my patch above to provide true redundancy and zoning.

Probably not going to happen quickly, but it will eventually happen.

[igori]

Thanks a lot. I'll try and use it.