Preface
[ 2 ]
Chapter 2, Distributed Monitoring, will explore the various Zabbix components,
both on the server and agent side. In addition to the deployment and conguration
of agents, proxies and nodes, maintenance, changed management, and security will
all be taken into account. This section will cover all the possible Zabbix architectural
implementations adding the pros and cons considerations.
Chapter 3, High Availability and Failover, will cover the subjects of high-availability
and failover. For each of the three main Zabbix tiers, the reader will learn to choose
among different HA options. The discussion will build on the information provided
in the previous two chapters, in order to end the rst part of the book with a few
complete deployment scenarios that will include high-availability server and databases
hierarchically organized in tiered, distributed architectures geared at monitoring
thousands of objects scattered in different geographical locations.
Chapter 4, Collecting Data, will move beyond simple agent items and SNMP queries
to tackle a few complex data sources. The chapter will explore some powerful Zabbix
built-ins, how to use them, and how to choose the best metrics to ensure thorough
monitoring without overloading the system. There will also be special considerations
about aggregated values and their use to monitor complex environments with
clusters or the more complex grid architectures.
Chapter 5, Visualizing Data, will focus on getting the most out of the data visualization
features of Zabbix. This one is a quite useful section especially if you need to explain
or chase some hardware expansion/improvement to the business unit. You will
learn how to leverage live monitoring data to make dynamic maps and how to
organize a collection of graphs for big-screen visualization in control centers and
implement a general qualitative view. This chapter will cover completely the data
center quality view slide show, which is really useful to highlight problems and warn
the rst-level support in a proactive approach. The chapter will also explore some
best practices concerning the IT services and SLA reporting features of Zabbix.
Chapter 6, Managing Alerts, will give examples of complex triggers and trigger
conditions, as well as some advice on choosing the right amount of trigger and
alerting actions. The purpose is to help you walk the ne line between being blind
to possible problems and being overwhelmed by false positives. You will also learn
how to use actions to automatically x simple problems, raising actions without
the need of human intervention to correlate different triggers and events, and how
to tie escalations to your operations management workow. This section will make
you aware of what can be automated, reducing your administrative workload and
optimizing the administration process in a proactive way.