Requirements to ZABBIX

[usb-stick]

Dear ladies and gentlemen,

momentanely I´am working on a concept for monitoring tools which compares some montitoring tools in regard of the requirements of our company.

Can you tell me if the following requirements will be fulfilled by your tool?

(1) Open Source Solution
(2) Big community is available
(3) Documentation is at a high quality
(4) Tool is easy to operate
(5) The Tool configuration is easy
(6) HMI configuration is easy
(7) Background pictures can be implementet
(8) Support of SNMP v1,v2,v3
(9) It is possible to call scripts (shell scripts, perl scripts and so on)
(10) Definition of roles possible
(11) Processing of Traps possible
(12) Tool shall be extendable
(13) Longtime-monitoring shall be possible.

Please can you checkmark these items?

I create a list with a lot of features for the tools but unfortunately have some open points also for your tool BigSister.

So I would ask you if you can make checkmarks to the open features if your tool will fulfill the features.
Here they are:

1. Alert-Form (mail, SMS, pager,….)
2. History of generated Status changes displayable/archieveable
3. Logging and Display of Performance data
4. Protocolls (snmp, ssh,…)
5. HW support like VMWare, Cisco, Juniper, F5, Veritas, Nortel, EMC, NetApp…
6. Support of geographic network maps
7. redundancy by starting multiple instances possible
8. Real-time diagnosis
9. Local tests by installing application on a client
10. history and reports
11. flexibility: Def. of alarm thresholds and warning, HMI adaptable
12. User management
13. longterm monitoring
14. Availibility report
15. Virtualisation possible
16. Templates available
17. XML-Data-Import / Export
18. Application load distribution on multiple hosts
19. Integration of failure and performance monitoring

Can you return the answer to my e-mail-account please?

In hope of a quick answer I send you many regards,

I need this information urgently because I have to finish the concept on friday

Many regards,

Matthias Anthes

please respond to [email protected]

[Tenzer]

Ehm, around 50% of those questions could you answer yourself by just looking around the website or forums.
Besides, a lot of the questions depend on personal judging, such as if the documentation is good or if the community is large. How should we know if those live up to what you would call good documentation?

Some people are just satisfied with a list of dependencies and the three commands used for configuring, compiling and installing the software, while others are more used to manuals from commercial products which contain 200+ pages...

[nelsonab]

(1) Open Source Solution

Yes

(2) Big community is available

Define Big. I'd say it's a decent size and many questions go answered fairly quickly and fairly well, but it's a matter of perspective.

(3) Documentation is at a high quality
(4) Tool is easy to operate

Like all tools, it has it's quirks and nomenclatures, but once you understand those it's fairly straight forward.

(5) The Tool configuration is easy

Again define easy. I've been using it for about 4 years, and it's pretty simple for me now. When I first started I found it to be fairly straight forward once I understood the above nomenclature.

(6) HMI configuration is easy

HMI?

(7) Background pictures can be implementet

I haven't done it, the Zabbix screenshots show it as possible, and others have hacked it so their background screens change.

(8) Support of SNMP v1,v2,v3

Yes

(9) It is possible to call scripts (shell scripts, perl scripts and so on)

Yes

(10) Definition of roles possible

Yes. However this is dependent on how complicated you want your roles to be.

(11) Processing of Traps possible

Yes, custom and SNMP

(12) Tool shall be extendable

No. No tool shell available, only command line environment of the host OS.

(13) Longtime-monitoring shall be possible.

This is Zabbix's strength. This is were I feel Zabbix kicks systems like Nagios' butt.

1. Alert-Form (mail, SMS, pager,….)

Yes

2. History of generated Status changes displayable/archieveable

Yes.

3. Logging and Display of Performance data

Yes, it is dependent on the quality of the data chosen to be monitored

4. Protocolls (snmp, ssh,…)

Define better. It works with SNMP, you can hack it to run over SSL using Stunnel and other tools.

5. HW support like VMWare, Cisco, Juniper, F5, Veritas, Nortel, EMC, NetApp…

There are templates available for various SNMP devices. This question is somewhat nebulous on what you are meaning by "Hardware Support"

6. Support of geographic network maps

Yes

7. redundancy by starting multiple instances possible

Yes, but not in a High-Availability type scenario.

8. Real-time diagnosis

Yes, as real time as the frequency of the items being monitored.

9. Local tests by installing application on a client

Huh? What are you asking for here? Does the agent perform tests when it's installed? No. The agent is VERY simple and because of that VERY flexible.

10. history and reports

History is a strength, reporting can be a little light for some and just perfect for others. Please elaborate on what you are looking for.

11. flexibility: Def. of alarm thresholds and warning, HMI adaptable

Yes.

12. User management

Yes

13. longterm monitoring

Yes. This is a Zabbix strength

14. Availibility report

Yes

15. Virtualisation possible

Yes, it's just a matter of building your own VM.

16. Templates available

Yes, see the Wiki

17. XML-Data-Import / Export

Yes

18. Application load distribution on multiple hosts

Yes and No. Distributed monitoring is possible, but all data still flows to a head node.

19. Integration of failure and performance monitoring

Yes, this is only as good as the scripts/items monitored.