VMWare discovery and templates

[GeoTom]

Hello,

I'm looking to replacing our current server monitoring with Zabbix 2.4.

We've got a small VMWare environment (~50VMs) of varying operating systems and roles (web servers, remote desktops etc) and how well Zabbix does with that will go a long way to deciding if we go for it in the long term.

I've been able to add our vCenter to Zabbix and it's dutifully added all our Hosts, VMs, and their data, but what I really want to do is then add extra group membership or templates to the VMs, and I can't seem to do that. For example if a basic web server has been discovered I'd like to add some checks for port 80 and add it to a group so our web devs can look at the machine's stats.

What should I be doing in this scenario? Is there some way to 'promote' a discovered VM to regular host item so I can add more items to it? Will I have to delete everything and add every VM by UUID?

All help appreciated.

[dhull]

Zabbix Agents

I've got a couple of VMWare servers on the network.
1. I use SNMP to monitor the VMWare Host
2. I use Zabbix Agents on the VM's

This setup works for me. I'm still learning so I can't give you any fancy configs. The only thing I've been able to monitor with an agent is the basics. Things like CPU and RAM usage.

Hope this helps.

[GeoTom]

It does, thanks for the input, what I might do is turn off guest discovery, but leave hypervisor and host on, then add the machines I care about using agents.

Unless anyone can see a better option.

[GeoTom]

Well this has come up again, and I'm still having the same issues which are stopping me from necessarily using Zabbix.

I do note I can add individual items to machines, but not being able to add discovered hosts to groups is probably going to be a deal breaker.