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The Zabbix server cannot run on windows:

https://www.zabbix.com/documen...

Zabbix is one of the best monitoring tools I have used.

http://www.zabbix.com/license.php

If you use ZABBIX in a commercial context such that you profit by its use, we ask that you further the development of ZABBIX by purchasing some level of support.

Just fair warning.

That seems to be nothing more than a polite request, considering that the GPL doesn't allow additional constraints. The license for the manual, on the other hand, seems pretty evil...

If you use ZABBIX in a commercial context such that you profit by its use, we ask that you further the development of ZABBIX by purchasing some level of support.

Just fair warning.

It's easy to find other solutions but most require some paid level of service that quickly escalate if you want notifications or multiple servers: ScoutApp, Pingdom, Copperegg ... Nagios & Zabbix are quite sophisticated but also have a lot of complexity. I built MonitorApp because it's quite simple to monitor any number of servers in an integrated with my iPhone. Compare the screenshots of MonitorApp in this tutorial to Zabbix - http://www.zabbix.com/screenshots.php

As a single point of evidence, I give you Zabbix... It supports the use of all the major databases (Postgresql, DB2, Oracle, SQLite, etc.) as backends, yet MySQL is recommended as it performs the fastest. http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/1.8/manual/performance_tuning

From the linked document:

rebuild MySQL or PostgreSQL from sources to get maximum performance

2003 just called. They want their Gentoo Ricers back.

When I think of fast databases to compare to, the first thing I think of is MySQL.

MySQL is actually very fast under light loads / one-off queries, and if you choose to leave it at the non-ACID compliant default settings, and similar. eg. "innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit"

That's probably the only reason why it got popular... There weren't any open source NoSQL DBs at the time, and MySQL seems fast when tested with a basic, shallow benchmark. Of course others like PostgreSQL completely leave it in the dust once there's some real load, or complex queries, or you WANT to be absolutely sure transactions were committed to disk before returning.

As a single point of evidence, I give you Zabbix... It supports the use of all the major databases (Postgresql, DB2, Oracle, SQLite, etc.) as backends, yet MySQL is recommended as it performs the fastest.
http://www.zabbix.com/documentation/1.8/manual/performance_tuning

/Actually, I'd rather see a comparison to Pick or other lightning fast MV dbs

Level-2 overflow! Resize analysis! Change the modulo! Ahhhh!

I've done the PICK-OS thing for a few years, and I'm not a big fan. I'm infinitely happier administering PostgreSQL DBs.

Besides, you don't have to go to something as exotic as PICK to get away from SQL. Try ages-old Berkley DB (db4), or any of the newer NoSQL options.

Oooh. You think Chinese companies are the only ones doing that? What about a company from the good old USA doing... the same? By replacing company name in copyright notices.

http://www.zabbix.com/forum/showthread.php?p=35724#post35724

I vote Zabbix. Here's why.

1) Free but offers paid support if you need it
2) Can use agents, snmp or simple checks like ping
3) Agents can be extended with your own scripts and such. If a check isn't built in you can add it. For example, I added a very simple script for checking of MySQL replication had stopped or failed.
4) Templates, makes it easy to add a metric and create a trigger based on that metric to any host attached to that template
5) Triggers can be configured to minimize false positives (multiple dropped packets before sending an alert.
6) You can graph item, group of items or an aggregate value of items in a host group
7) Create your own maps
8) Create custom screens that group simple or complex graphs or whatever else you want onto a single page

There are some things to know about Zabbix though. You need to put some thought into items to get accurate values. Is the value you are getting from a device in bits or bytes for example. You can use custom multipliers to convert values into what you want to see.

Honestly, Zabbix is incredibly flexible and this flexibility also gives it a steep learning curve but once you get hosts entered and the templates situated the way you want it becomes very easy to add new hosts down the line. The biggest tip I can give is to make sure you spend a lot of time thinking out how to setup your templates. Zabbix includes a number of them and you'll want to customize them. One thing I found that wasn't a good idea is to make a template and then attach it to a template. It's much easier to join a host to multiple templates.

http://www.zabbix.com/

Zabbix.

http://www.zabbix.com/

If it leaves something to be desired, please tell us what.

You can also look into Zabbix. It's open source, and has Enterprise support available. I haven't used it yet, but as soon as I have a spare moment to breath I intend to test it out for use in my environment.

The biggest issue you need to overcome with FOSS projects in a business setting is supportability. For example, I'm on a project at the moment where I'm transitioning the customer from a proprietary unix solution onto multiple Oracle RAC clusters on Redhat; Oracle Application servers on Redhat; and Linux Virtual Server load balancing clusters, also on Redhat. This is fine, because the software stack from top to bottom is mainstream, supported by commercial vendors, and after I'm gone there is a well defined set of skills they can recruit against and train existing staff to replace me. Since getting here though I've discovered a few bespoke applications (developed in-house by people who have since left) written using Ruby on Rails. While the apps work well today, documentation is poor to non-existent, and no one is left now with skills to understand them, develop them if requirements change or support them. They aren't backed by a vendor, so if something goes wrong they're screwed. It's kind of their own fault: they gave free rain to someone who either wanted to do this stuff using his own favourite tools, or wanted a tick on his resume, instead of sticking with technologies in line with their core competencies. If you want to do something with Drupal for example, then make sure you're able to wrap it up in a support structure (from a vendor) that can give them the security they need. Another example: I convinced my current customer that switching to Zabbix for their server, application and network monitoring and alert needs would be a good thing, and they went for it. Why? Because while Zabbix is Open Source, it's also backed by a vendor (Zabbix) and they can buy a commercial support contract. In addition, being a FOSS project they could install and test it at no cost for as long as they like before making a decision and parting with their cash. So if you can tick all the boxes, you stand a much better chance of getting your ideas accepted.

And don't listen to anyone who tells you to sneak this stuff in through the back door. If it's under the radar then your employer is in for a nasty surprise if it goes wrong. And if it's business critical you'll find yourself pink slipped faster than you can blink.

We just did an evaluation of tools like Nagios, Munin, Zenoss & Zabbix and chose Zabbix. It's a little more effort to get going than Zenoss: compile from sources for the free version create your own account, move the files around yourself, etc than Zenoss (RPM install). But once going you're instantly more productive. Zenoss touts their strength as an agentless solution, but in practice I found that I didn't get a single system out of an initial scan of 50 PCs that picked up all the information is was supposed to get, or didn't give me a splat of SNMP errors to boot. Plus you have to block out a day to learn the Zenoss language of zenThis, zenThat, zenTheOther to even begin to understand the product and work out what you want to capture.

Zabbix by comparison was a loads easier. Edit the client conf file to point back to your server then copy the client agent conf file to the target, and the agent binary, following their instructions (create an account for it on Linux) start it, and you're done on the client side. From the server, login to the web page and follow the instructions for adding a new client and linking it to the appropriate system template. Instantly it starts collecting data and (after a period of time) you can view what it's collecting in graph form. The graphs have a nice zoom feature too: just click, drag and release on the bit you want to expand. I'm not even beginning to do this tool justice, it can do so much more than this. Go see their web site.

Zenoss looks a bit prettier, but Zabbix blew them away on ease of use once it was up and running. Oh, and Zabbix can do agent-less too using SNMP templates for things like network switches, if that's the way you want to go. Oh (again) be aware that if you have a mix 32bit and 64 of Linux builds (as we do) that you compile the agent binary for the box you're putting it on. They provide pre-built win32 and win64 agents for you.

i did, i did, i did preview !!!1111one
http://www.zabbix.com/

I once had a look at Zabbix. It is very easy to install and provides tons of stats. You can build screens with preferred graphs and maps resembling your network and stuff. It's nice but I found it not to be expandable so you are pretty much stuck at the default values the agents collect (though it's been a while, maybe that changed).

I like Nagios but I can't really imagine how to apply it in large (think ten thousand hosts) setup in multiple regional/organizational branches and so on.

Also Nagios *is* painful to setup. First of all AFAIK there is no way to delegate administration f.e. to organizational branches. Configuration is just a big pile of config files included from some other config files etc. There is no autodiscovery/autoconfiguration of hosts since Nagios team belives it is BAD etc.

Well IMHO Nagios is grat but it is like, a big fat pile of hacked scripts and configs. Not too elegant but working.

Now... I am (well we are in my organization) using Zabbix and I find it great. It is much better organised/elegant than Nagios.

In Zabbix architecture you have well designed atomic elements like checks, items, services (groups), etc. It also gathers fine tuned historical data for trends and historical review. You can compact the data (lower the resolution) after a given time and so on. It is in fact a very complete monitoring framework with its own internal condition language, escalation engine. You can gather data from network checks, SNMP, custom scripts, Zabbix agents (aviable for most platforms) etc.

And it has normal configuration, not crude text config files. I have nothing against text files but sometime I don't really want to open my text editor only to quickly setup an ad-hoc overwiev screen with maps, graphs, status displays, clocks and you can have few screens of such rotating on your big screens in NOC. All with mouse clicking.

I can give it as a tool for sysadmin and he or she can work with it without having to study manuals. Not everybody in your organization is an unix hacker you know...

We have dozens of branch servers which are managed by local sysadmins and a farm of central servers which is managed by central staff.

Zabbix works in distributed manner so a local branch can have very detailed view on their infrastructure and at central level I can have an functional/business overview of entire infrastructure, core services (like business systems, transactions etc.) Not just simple checks if RAID is OK - I don't care if RAID in some server is OK. I need to know why (where, who to blame) given service (be it MQ/WebSphere) is not working as desired.

And also it is free, open source and aviable in most linux/unix distributions as a standard package. So when considering enterprise monitoring platform do yourself a favour and also check Zabbix.

http://www.zabbix.com/downloads/ZABBIX%20Manual%20v1.6.pdf

Yeah, I'm currently running a Zabbix server monitoring about 90 machines. That's running just fine on MySQL 5.0.27 GA, at well over 500 queries a second and not a single slow page load with a webserver running on the same box. It's only got a gig of RAM, too. Till I see PostgreSQL perform at the same level, we'll talk. Hell, PostgreSQL runs Zabbix about 9 times slower according to Zabbix's internal benchmarks.

Did you ever heard of ZABBIX? I believe this is the best Open Source monitoring solution around. It is a mature and flexible piece of software which comes with very impressive feature set.

There is a number of alernative Open Source monitoring software available. Nagios, Cacti and my favourite ZABBIX. ZABBIX is much less resource hungry comparing to Nagios and especially to OpenNMS.

One word... Zabbix does it all...

Check Zabbix if you're looking for a solution which is free, supports all platforms, and easy to deploy. Look at screenshots.

My company uses it for several months already in a mixed Windows/Unix environment (~180 servers) with great success. We use nearly all features (notifications, graphs, network maps, SLA monitoring, cool screens) Zabbix provides. Very useful stuff indeed. We tried Nagios before, but found it complex and hard to maintain. Besides performance of Nagios was disappointing (not enough tuning?).

Rog

Not so well known as other oss projects:
http://www.zabbix.com/.
It has its quirks, and it can be a little difficult to set up and get used to the first time, but it does its job well

• Alexei Vladishev
• Francesco
• Gerbier Eric
• Jerome Couderc

I do not understand why the big corporation uses MRTG which does nothing apart of bunch of graphs which can hardly be used for pro-active monitoring.

Come on, BBC! Use Zabbix or Nagios to get real monitoring software!