do i need to install zabbix agent?

[georgekochkin]

Hello!
I was not able to find the following info:
is it necessary to install zabbix agent to monitor such things as SQL server backup success/failures, windows counters?
Thanks for help

[jan.garaj]

No, if you are able to obtain metric data remotely (through ssh, snmp, http, ...)

[coreychristian]

Most of that information would not easily be made available via any of the options that are available outside of the zabbix agent.

All of the things you mentioned would be easy to obtain with the zabbix agent as well.

You do have a few options, zabbix_sender, or as mentioned SNMP (you would need a custom windows SNMP agent), http (again you would need to build a custom website), etc...

[georgekochkin]

Most of that information would not easily be made available via any of the options that are available outside of the zabbix agent.

All of the things you mentioned would be easy to obtain with the zabbix agent as well.

You do have a few options, zabbix_sender, or as mentioned SNMP (you would need a custom windows SNMP agent), http (again you would need to build a custom website), etc...

So, the easiest way is to install it?
Are there any potential issues about the agent? (eg perfomance ...)
Thanks for answering

[coreychristian]

So, the easiest way is to install it?
Are there any potential issues about the agent? (eg perfomance ...)
Thanks for answering

We don't have a windows config management tool (like Chef, or something similar)

So I have taken the files I need and put them in zip files and run a batch file. Not very efficient but we are mostly a linux shop now.

https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.0/manual/appendix/install/windows_agent

Is the guide to the Windows installer though, if you google there are some msi installers out there.

In general we haven't noticed any performance issues with the zabbix on windows, but for us it is replacing SCOM, and I don't see it taking up more resources then the SCOM agent used to.