upgrading from 5.0.x to 5.4

[cindyM]

Hello,

We are an MSP that has a central Zabbix console. At our customer sites, we have a zabbix proxy servers and obviously the hosts with zabbix agents (or SNMP devices) that we are monitoring. We have replaced Cacti and smokeping with this Zabbix infrastructure about a year ago. We are monitoring about 150 devices (SNMP and Zabbix agent). It's working ok, but we get alot of superfluous notification emails. I'm seeing some new integrations in 5.4 that look appealing.
Is it worth it to spend the effort to upgrade from 5.0.x to 5.4? Is it as simple as upgrading the console, and then going through and installing the new proxy/agent on the proxies and then upgrading the agents on all of the hosts? Will the agents automatically upgrade from 5.0.x to 5.4 without having to modify the configuration file again?
Seems like a lot of work, so I'm wondering if we just wait until 6.0 LTS. I see that it is expected in Q4 2021. Any suggestions or insight is appreciated.
Thanks

[gofree]

dont go with 5.4 - as 6.0 will be out in Q1 2022 after month or so 5.4 will be not supported - I just think its safer to wait for 6.0 and do upgrade from one LTS to another

wait for 6.0.2 or 6.0.3 ( some of the bugs will be fixed ) expect in Q1 2022

agents will not upgrade - perhaps you dont need them to update if you're only using basing monitoring ( agents are compatible backwards )

still you'll have to import some of the new templates/intergations manualy

[tim.mooney]

+1 to everything gofree said. That's all really good advice.

While we're all waiting for 6.0.3+ to come out, there are some things you can do to prepare. The system and database requirements and supported distros have already been published, so make sure you have a migration path planned to get to those for hosting 6.0. You may need to upgrade database version or host operating system, and if you do those now, you'll have any issues from those upgrades sorted out before you do the 6.0.3+ upgrade.

Also, the new version and even new integrations probably aren't going to magically solve superfluous alerts, so you may want to be thinking about why you're getting superfluous alerts with your current version. Is it because you don't have proper dependencies set up? Is it because you're monitoring things that you don't need to? There's a lot you can do even at 5.0.x to help reduce alert fatigue, but you have to start by identifying what the sources are for the superfluous alerts now. If you have questions about that, post in the "Help" or one of the other categories.