Applications

[Tractorboy]

Hi

Zabbix 1.8.4

We are looking to upgrade once resources are available, but in the meantime I have an issue that maybe someone can either confirm is in a new version, or can advise of a way to resolve.

We have a situation whereby we have a large number of applications on a single server.

I would like to have application maps, so that if an application alert fired then only that map would go red, not all the other application maps that have items that reside on the server.

As part of this server related alerts would need to fire on all map that the server relates.


Hopefully this make sense.

[Tractorboy]

Anyone Any Thoughts?

..........

[Tractorboy]

Can others advise

How they configure their monitoring, so that application issues are specifically highlighted?

[steveboyson]

Probably impossible.

How they configure their monitoring, so that application issues are specifically highlighted?

Since Zabbix is server-centric, a failure in one of the collected items which belong to this server will change the server state to "failure".

What you could do is: you create individual dummy servers (127.0.0.2, 127.0.0.3, 127.0.0.4 ...) which represent your individual applications. Perform external checks (done on the Zabbix server) to check for application health. Doing this, only your "dummy host" which represents your application will turn RED on error.

[Pada]

In 1.8.15 I can add a "Trigger" type to the map. You can use that to show an OK/Problem per application. For this you'll probably need to add another trigger that combines all the triggers applicable to that application.

At my office we're doing it pretty much like what steveboyson said.
Like we'll have a server called:
prod1.mydomain.com < this host will be used for general Zabbix agent/system metrics
prod1.mydomain.com-serviceA < this host will only contain items relevant to "serviceA"
prod1.mydomain.com-serviceB < this host will only contain items relevant to "serviceB".
Here's a screenshot of how it looks in our environment: http://www.myimgs.co.za/images/pada/zabbixhosts.png

In our case, we don't have the Zabbix agent running on multiple ports or virtual IP addresses. Instead, we use scripts that parse our data and then use zabbix_sender to send the data to the host (but it then appends the application/service name to the host).

I'm not sure if there are more efficient ways of doing this. We're sending one of our support guys for Zabbix training somewhere in September I think, so hopefully he'll come back with better ways of doing things

[Tractorboy]

Thanks

Thank you both for your thoughts. I had a concern that that was the only way to progress. I could see this taking up a large amount of time to configure with the complex system that we have.

I think having application maps would be a very good addition to the product, would you agree?

[Pada]

What exactly do you mean by "application map"?

Do you mean like you have an icon that you associate with a particular application of a specific host? And then based on the triggers for that application it will change colours/icons?

[Tractorboy]

Application Map

To me an application map is a picture of an application.

For us an application will exist on multiple servers. Some, indeed most, of the servers will also have parts of other applications on them.

Our vision is the have a "header" type page with would have a map of our application maps, eachof these maps would contain the picture of the application.

We have it implemented at the minute, but that means when an alerts fires most of the applications have an alter raised. this is becuase the server exists in multiple maps.

My ideal scnario would be able to say for each key with application it relates (which in effect exists in zabbix already), but then attach the Application to a map

so for Server1
Application = Server (generic server related monitroing)
Application = Application 1
Application = Application 2

so for Server2
Application = Server (generic server related monitroing)
Application = Application 1
Application = Application 3

say, and onwards


I would then have a map for Application 1, which would have on it server1 and Server2, but would only alert when alerts fired for items stored within Application 1, and in this case server alerts. (I would see a drop down appearing as you insert each server in the map that says which applications to assign against this server.


I suspect zabbix almost ios there, bar the dropdown, and behind the scenes functionality.

The added value, at least for us, would be great.