Newbie questions
Hi everyone,
A quick background first - I'm a SysAdmin responsible for monitoring about 350 servers of varying types including Windows, Netware, SUSE Linux, VMware ESX, Solaris etc We currently use a combination of BigBrother, MRTG, and AdremSoft NetCrunch. Our recent licence renewal for NetCrunch was £25k, which together with a growing number of problems experienced with the product, has prompted a review of the monitoring toolset that we use.
Our shortlist is down to Hyperic and Zabbix. We have SNMP running on all servers for our current monitoring systems, so that will be our preferred medium - agents will be used if they can offer real added-value, otherwise we'll probably just run with SNMP.
So, my questions are as follows -
1. Is there a limit on the number of servers/services that one Zabbix server can monitor reliably without performance degradation?
2. If there was a limit to the number of servers being monitored (say 50), can Zabbix handle distributed monitoring with single point reporting? In other words, can we set up say 6 Zabbix servers and have them send their data to one central server so that 'the management' can see the overall view on one webpage?
3. How have you found Zabbix Support? Is it effective - efficient - helpful?
4. I reckon I can guess the answer to this - do you think Zabbix is a better solution than Hyperic? Why?
5. How easy is it to create custom management reports?
6. Finally, is anyone running Zabbix as a VMware virtual server? Any issues noted?
Thanks for your time - it is much appreciated.
A quick background first - I'm a SysAdmin responsible for monitoring about 350 servers of varying types including Windows, Netware, SUSE Linux, VMware ESX, Solaris etc We currently use a combination of BigBrother, MRTG, and AdremSoft NetCrunch. Our recent licence renewal for NetCrunch was £25k, which together with a growing number of problems experienced with the product, has prompted a review of the monitoring toolset that we use.
Our shortlist is down to Hyperic and Zabbix. We have SNMP running on all servers for our current monitoring systems, so that will be our preferred medium - agents will be used if they can offer real added-value, otherwise we'll probably just run with SNMP.
So, my questions are as follows -
1. Is there a limit on the number of servers/services that one Zabbix server can monitor reliably without performance degradation?
2. If there was a limit to the number of servers being monitored (say 50), can Zabbix handle distributed monitoring with single point reporting? In other words, can we set up say 6 Zabbix servers and have them send their data to one central server so that 'the management' can see the overall view on one webpage?
3. How have you found Zabbix Support? Is it effective - efficient - helpful?
4. I reckon I can guess the answer to this - do you think Zabbix is a better solution than Hyperic? Why?
5. How easy is it to create custom management reports?
6. Finally, is anyone running Zabbix as a VMware virtual server? Any issues noted?
Thanks for your time - it is much appreciated.
it's hard do define ...
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