Advises to set up Zabbix in a distributed environment with limited bonds

[cyp.griot]

Hello everyone

I have the project to set up a distributed monitoring system in my company and we have decided to use Zabbix. However, we have some specific requirements and I wanted to ask the community how to do this well.
I have already installed a Zabbix server to get familiar with. Though now I have to try it deeper to check how it would react in the future prod environment.

To make it simple, we have our main site in France and 4 remote sites connected through sattellite links (ipsec tunnels). In another words, restricted bandwidth accesses. So what we want is : having a central monitoring interface in our main office that gets local data but also remote sites data through those limited links (so it has to consume as few as possible our bandwidth resources). Also, each remote site has to have its own local monitoring interface.

What I have been advised to is to set up a couple server/proxy in each site, so that remote sites' proxies send their date to both servers (local one and main one).
Does this sound good to you ? Is the proxy for the main office useful or should I just have the server for the main site and the couple server/proxy on remote site ? Is it better to have the server/proxy on the same server ?
What about active / passive proxies / agents ? What would be the best to use less bandwidth ? Is there any way to compress communications ? With encryption maybe ?

I am still discovering Zabbix, so there is a few obscure things to me yet haha
Thanks you a lot in advance for your help !

Regards,
Cyp

[Hamardaban]

Consider that the proxy is able to work with one server. But agents are able to work with several proxies or servers. Active agents and proxies to generate less traffic (in the aggregate). IMHO is the optimal configuration for you: agents on the end nodes communicate with the proxy (sending data to the Central server) and with the local server at the location. the Central server + fronend in the main location allows you to monitor the metrics you need, and the local servers monitor what the local staff needs. But keep in mind that the settings of the servers are not connected! Own sets of nodes, data items, triggers, and alerts. Maybe it is better to give access to the local personnel to the web interface in the main location?

If you have the money - refer to zabbix co. They will make a competent project.

[cyp.griot]

Thank you a lot for your answer

My bad, I thought it was possible to set up several server addresses on proxy. I guess I was wrong when I read the doc.. I will check that up, how to use active agents wit both proxy and server. Thanks for your help !
Giving the access of the main station to the remote sites would be the best indeed, but internet connection will be extremely low and it would be not possible to manage the monitoring system that way. I guess we will have to find out a solution, with a bit of scripting, Or a lot of communication with the remote sites haha

I just have one more question, concerning active mode and traffic. I haven't found much information about this in the doc, why active check would use fewer network resources ? What did you mean by in the aggregate ?


Unfortunately, we'd prefer to keep this as a free solution..

[Hamardaban]

in my opinion, in the case of active checks, the flow of requests to agents\proxies decreases. By the way! when the server and proxy interact, you can enable traffic compression.

ZS 4.0.0 All communications between Zabbix server and all proxies, and vice versa are now unconditionally compressed. Compression lowers the bandwidth requirements and improves data transfer speed.

[cyp.griot]

Alright, I will continue to try all this then
Yeah I have seen that option somewhere, it will definitely be enabled haha

Thanks again