cloud proxy for on premise zabbix server

[EDP Maddalena]

Hi.

I am new in this forum so I would first like to thank the developers of this product.

I have on premise Zabbix Server installation but several services are also published outside of my company network.

So I wish I could monitor the services that are published from a "cloud perspective".

Can I use a Zabbix Proxy deployed in cloud to do this?

In particular I haven't understand if I can put a Zabbix Proxy in cloud to check services from cloud and then send results of checks to my on premise Zabbix Server.

Thank you

[KBlasz]

Yes its the main function of a zabbix proxy server. You will need to expose the zabbix ports (set in your server config file, by default:10050-10051) to your on premise server for the proxy to send the data back. If the Proxy server is conducting active checks over a public network then you will need to also expose the proxy zabbix port. If any of the checks contain sensitive data Its important to enable encryption between any two locations that travers a public space, otherwise you will just be leaking important data all over the internet.

[EDP Maddalena]

Hi.

Thank you for your answer.

So Zabbix Proxy can do active checks and then send checks data to the on premise zabbix server? Cool!

Can you give me a link (I have not found it in the documentation) where I can find which port will use zabbix proxy to send data to on premise zabbix server? I can open ports 10050 and 10051 from the cloud to on premise zabbix, but you have said that in case of active checks there is another port to open.

Than you and have a nice day

[Mike2K]

Hi.

Thank you for your answer.

So Zabbix Proxy can do active checks and then send checks data to the on premise zabbix server? Cool!

Can you give me a link (I have not found it in the documentation) where I can find which port will use zabbix proxy to send data to on premise zabbix server? I can open ports 10050 and 10051 from the cloud to on premise zabbix, but you have said that in case of active checks there is another port to open.

Than you and have a nice day

Only port 10051 should be enough. 10050 is for zabbix server to agent connections.

[EDP Maddalena]

Thank you!

[Jobet]

EDP Maddalena

Hi,

So what would be the definitive setup? Agents (Installed in cloud servers) -> Proxy Zabbix server (Installed in a cloud server) -> On premises central Zabbix server?

[KBlasz]

Yes, the more proxies the merrier in my opinion, atleast one per environment/datacentre depending on how your topology looks like. proxies do a great job of reducing the load on the main server. In an ideal world you should only use the main zabbix server to do management ,administration tasks and a few critical monitors for general network health. Zabbix proxies should be doing all the heavy lifting required to get the data from your monitored hosts.

[EDP Maddalena]

Jobet

Hi.

In my case I would have a proxy installed in a vm in a cloud data center that would monitoring my published internal services.

So I can be sure that these services are running both inside my network and outside.

Regards

[Jobet]

KBlasz

Hi,

Thanks for the info.

So if I have well understood, monitoring data collection is carried out by the proxy system... management Zabbix server it is only for administration tasks.

1) In this case it's the proxy system that needs a more powerful server in terms of database resources, right?

2) Management Zabbix server can be installed in a local computer (LAN)?

Thanks

Regards

[KBlasz]

Use the recommended specs zabbix has provided in documentation, performance is rated the amount of values a server has to process a second.

The current setup i am working with creates around 280 values per second from 4 different sites. my proxies and the central server are runnig as virtual machines.
Central zabbix server has allocated: 16gb ram, 8 cores, medium speed HDD Raid array
Proxies have allocated: 4-8gb ram, 4 cores, medium speed HDD Raid array (if your pollers are running slow, add more performance, and change default amount in config)

the reasoning behind zabbix server and proxy placement:

As long as its somewhere your latency is good, everything should work smoothly. when setting up a cloud monitoring infrastructure you have to consider how long it will take each value to be recieved. every zabbix server/proxy has a limited amount of pollers by default (imagine theses as workers gathering data) . If you use up all the pollers trying to reach really far away cloud services then you will very quickly fill up your queue and run out of pollers, cuasing the zabbix server to crawl at a snails pace. I recommend you measure your latency for every cloud service location you are monitoring and place your proxies strategically as near as possible to them. Your zabbix server should be somehwere in the middle where it can get good contact with all the proxies, buts it not critical as the communication between server and proxy is much less demanding than proxy to agent.