Implementing Zabbix Agent in a Corporate Network

Project Overview: Zabbix Agent provides tracking and monitoring of the network behaviour within metrics such as performance indicators, machine health conditions, suspicious activity, and other indicators between the network infrastructure elements (servers, devices, OS, IoT, etc).

Objectives

1. Develop a user-friendly software solution to monitor the network traffic for the assigned facility.
2. Utilize a Raspberry PI 2 as the designated Zabbix Agent machine/server.
3. Provide an open-source alternative for PRTG services that could be of use on a long-term basis.

Features

1. Cost and Licensing:

• Open-source and free to use, with no licensing costs.
• Costs are associated with hosting, support, and the resources required to manage the system.

2. Ease of Use and Setup:

• Requires manual setup and configuration.
• The user interface is intuitive.
• Deployment is highly customizable.

3. Scope of Monitoring

• Primarily focused on infrastructure monitoring, such as servers, network devices, and applications.
• Strong in monitoring via SNMP, ICMP, and agent-based systems.
• Offers application monitoring capabilities.

4. Support and Community

• Relies heavily on community support and forums.
• Paid support is available through Zabbix LLC.

5. Scalability

• Scales well for medium to large environments. Requires careful planning, especially with database management and performance tuning.
• Can become resource heavy as the number of monitored devices increases

Technology Stack

• Backend: Written in C for real-time data synchronization.
• Database: Zabbix typically uses MySQL, PostgreSQL, or other relational databases for storing its data.

Outcome

Installing Zabbix on a Raspberry Pi for the corporate office proved to be a highly effective and cost-efficient alternative to PRTG. The open-source nature of Zabbix allowed full customization and scalability without licensing constraints. Its lightweight footprint made it ideal for running on a Raspberry Pi, ensuring minimal resource consumption while delivering reliable performance.