"SNMP Device" template vs self-created templates?

[DangerCray]

I've been using Zabbix in a basic way for a while now by simply using the "SNMP Device" template and disabling any unneeded checks it finds automatically, I recently upgraded to 3.0.2 and have it running on a Virtual machine impressively well. This SNMP Device template has so far found all that I want monitored and I end up disabling a large chunk of these, I'd estimate that I disable almost 2/3rds of the checks which seems to help on the impact on the server as I am currently monitoring about 100 severs this way plus ICMP checks on each as well. I've also edited how often some of the checks occur. I am mostly monitoring Uptime, WAN port traffic, plus link status changes for each of the ports on the servers which I'll eventually need to do for all switches on site next.

The main question I have is how this method I've been using compares to making my own specific device templates in terms of efficiency. As mentioned before, the "SNMP Device" template seems to do everything I need and I've disabled various items as well as editing the check intervals to where I need them so my server load; as far as I am aware; is not very high despite the number of systems I am monitoring. But I'll need to start adding in all the switches located at each property, which is between 1-20 switches depending on the site. I've tested this with a couple of switches and the SNMP Device template finds a ton more of items(400+) which I don't need to have checked and can disable the majority and that is not a problem as we don't make changes often at all.

So the short version, does disabling the various checks and keeping only the important checks on the SNMP Device template equate to making my own specific SNMP template, per device, in terms of Zabbix performance? It might be annoying to disable a ton of items, but it seems incredibly difficult and extremely time consuming to learn to make my own templates(which I do kind of want to do and would likely upload these templates to the Zabbix community in return but I have time constraints to worry about for other projects).

I should also mention that the servers and switches; as far as I am aware; do not support Zabbix Agents. The servers are mostly Nomadix and we have a mix of SMB Cisco and HP switches. I'm not very knowledgeable about SNMP either other than it not actually being very simple heh.

[cvee.it]

Making your own SNMP templates is not a terribly difficult thing, understanding the discovery items and templates may take some time to get your head around but otherwise it is a worth while endeavor.

Overall though things to consider:
with the default snmp device/interface/disk/cpu templates ...yes they will make a lot of items. That is a given.

Personally I have altered the default template and even added to it in order to get additional network metrics (from interfaces). But its about what you want to get, and how thoroughly you want to monitor your environment.

With all the repeated disabling of items/triggers you mentioned you do on new devices...why not do this once at the template level for the checks you know you don't want to see ? or make a regex expression to filter them from being detected? (backup the original, then work off a clone...)

Self-created templates will be limiting and cannot be recycled without fine tune tinkering at a granular level every time a new device/model comes along. Keep it generic then add your personal touch.

Overall I recommend working with the generic templates (improve on them) but then making device/vendor/model specific addons which retrieve/monitor specifics that the generic template will not query.

For example I might have a firewall template, i use the SNMP device template... but then i have a vendor specific one also linked to the host in order to monitor proprietary high availability checks or something like that.

Hope that helps.

[DangerCray]

Thank you, do you know any good resources for learning how to create my own templates as the documentation on this site is difficult to understand at best? I'm still new to SNMP in general and due my job I need to learn more anyways so I am very interested in learning; I have managed to get a MIB reader to help locate OID's for my equipment but I've yet to get much to work other than pulling the contact information from a server. I had figured this minor achievement would point me in the direction for getting other info sorted out but it has not worked out like it normally does(starting small and expanding from that).

An example of one issue I have is that the SNMP Device template accurately locates 6 ports on my servers from "gei0" - "gei5" for example, and I know "gei0" is the WAN facing port we typically use. But the template locates these using an discovery rule so I am unsure how to fine tune the individual ports. Yet going a different direction, I have not been able to manually get my own template to work on any port(only the contact info as mentioned).

I feel like I am way more confused on this than I probably should be, like I need a nudge in the right direction to get this started.

[cvee.it]

Its a lot to take in all at once.

I recommend start with the existing templates within Zabbix. Then look at what other people have published . You will learn by examining other people's discovery templates and their contents.

Regarding interfaces, I would leave the SNMP interfaces to do its job, (I've also altered the default in order to have the aliases on device ports in my graphs (google it)). Then once the ports are discovered on that device in question, if you don't want to know anything about those ports then just disable the item/trigger on the host configuration.

That way any reg exp that you run against the SNMP Interfaces template doesn't interfere with future devies.

Good luck.