All posts by Michael Kammer

Using Frontend Scripts to the Max with Rick van der Ploeg

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/using-frontend-scripts-to-the-max-with-rick-van-der-ploeg/29668/

Zabbix Conference Benelux 2025 is right around the corner, which means that it’s time for another interview with a Conference presenter. This week, we’re talking to Rick van der Ploeg, a Zabbix consultant and expert at Opensource ICT Solutions. We asked him about the road that led him to Zabbix and how frontend scripts can open the door to enhanced Zabbix functionality.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to Zabbix.

I’m a Zabbix consultant at OICTS. During my time as a DevOps engineer for an MSP, my team was tasked with implementing a monitoring solution for our customers’ network equipment. We successfully integrated Zabbix and never looked back. Since then, I have gained extensive experience with Zabbix, and I recently even became a certified Zabbix Expert.

How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks do you take care of on a daily basis?

I’ve been working with Zabbix for over five years now. The first version I used was 4.4, and a lot has changed since then! As a Zabbix consultant, my main role is advising on and implementing Zabbix solutions for our customers. This means anything from building custom templates to installing and managing complete monitoring environments.

Can you drop a couple of hints about what we can expect from your conference presentation?

I’ll be talking about different ways to utilize frontend scripts in Zabbix, and I’ll also showcase some relevant examples of how scripts can enhance Zabbix’s functionality.

How did you decide on the topic of Zabbix and frontend scripts? Was there a specific catalyst or event that led you to this topic?

What I love about frontend scripts is their ability to extend Zabbix’s functionality to almost anything you can think of. Over the years, I’ve developed several solutions that have significantly increased the value and efficiency of the Zabbix installations I’ve worked on.
I’ve noticed that many people are still unaware of the power and possibilities that frontend scripts offer, so I figured this would be a great topic to talk about.

What makes Zabbix especially well-suited for frontend scripts?

For me, the best thing about frontend scripts in Zabbix is that you can use data from Zabbix as input for your scripts. This flexibility allows you to create simple yet powerful scripts that can be easily used by any type of Zabbix user.

The post Using Frontend Scripts to the Max with Rick van der Ploeg appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

The ATS Group and a Regional Telecom Provider

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/the-ats-group-and-a-regional-telecom-provider/29671/

Our Premium Partners at the ATS Group have a regional telecom provider on the West Coast of the United States as one of their key clients. The provider covers a massive geographical area on a limited budget and serves thousands of (primarily rural) customers.

The Challenge

After recent price hikes by the “big-box” monitoring solutions, the provider needed an alternative with a more stable pricing model. Simply put, their budget was shrinking, but their software monitoring costs were expanding.

The provider had a large stock of non-traditional IT equipment that all needed to be monitored effectively, and they also had only one month to get all monitored devices and endpoints over to a new solution.

On top of that, many of the provider’s legacy systems were directly related to regulatory compliance and therefore needed to be operational from day one.

The Solution

The provider set about migrating to a complete and robust Zabbix 7.0 solution that would eliminate any foreseeable issues – even the loss of an entire data center.

There were a few initial hiccups in the implementation when it came to getting PostgreSQL set up with database proxies, but the ATS Group team quickly arrived at an architecture that the provider was happy with. The clear and easy-to-follow Zabbix documentation was of particular help.

The Results

The new Zabbix solution, as implemented, was able to monitor a number of things that had previously been challenging, including:

• Doors. The provider badly needed a solution for monitoring doors, including entrance and exit doors as well as cabinet doors in data centers. They had long-term compliance issues with doors sticking open, employees forgetting to close doors, etc. Zabbix made it easy to develop custom SNMP traps that send alerts in case of open doors, solving the issue.

• Weather. The provider’s services are available over a large and varied geographical area that encompasses multiple states. The ability of Zabbix to predict weather changes across this area has been an important added bonus, with the provider now being able to get future weather alerts that can be used to compare against equipment tolerance levels. Personnel can then be sent to affected areas in anticipation of weather events, instead of being purely reactive.

• SLAs. The provider functions as an ISP that provides internet access to customers in rural areas, many of whom may not have other means of accessing the world around them. As such, they not only feel a strong sense of duty to provide consistent uptime, but they are bound by a strict set of service level agreements (SLAs). With Zabbix, it’s possible to provide SLAs for some of the remote edge equipment involved by building an integration with ServiceNow.

In conclusion

The telecom provider in question trusts Zabbix to guarantee rural broadband access for thousands of customers over an enormous geographic area. Zabbix not only gets the job done more effectively than other monitoring solutions, it does so at a fraction of the cost.

The post The ATS Group and a Regional Telecom Provider appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Feeding Zabbix MQTT Data with Ivo Schooneman

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/feeding-zabbix-mqtt-data-with-ivo-schooneman/29650/

This year’s Zabbix Conference Benelux is rapidly approaching, and to whet our audience’s appetite we sat down for a short interview with one of the conference’s featured presenters. Open Source Consultant Ivo Schooneman works for our Certified Partner Xifeo ICT B.V., and we quizzed him about how he got started in the open-source movement, what led him down the path to Zabbix, and how he sees Zabbix and MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) fitting into a new world of connected and smart devices.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you got to this point in your career.

I started using Linux and open-source software in the mid-1990s, building my own home server for email, a website, and a firewall. After my internship in a Linux team, I got a job offer that I accepted. From there I became a consultant, helping small companies to build their servers. Eventually, I moved to a bigger company to offer consultancy services to banks, telecom providers, television stations, and streaming providers.

When you work in a company with a lot of open source enthusiasts, you hear a lot about new products and keep growing to make the environment for your customers better every day. I completed a lot of certifications and training courses – AWS, RHCA, Python, and many more. At some point, I wanted to move on, so I joined Xifeo, where I got the boost I needed to specialize in Zabbix.

How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks do you and your team get involved in daily?

I’ve been using Zabbix for about 4 years. When I joined Xifeo in 2022, I took the opportunity to give myself a boost by gaining my Zabbix Certified User, Zabbix Certified Specialist, and Zabbix Certified Professional certifications. I’ve grown to trust it so much that even my home network is monitored with Zabbix!

Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your presentation at Zabbix Conference Benelux?

I will talk about the history of MQTT, where it started, how it works with pub/sub, and talk about some scenarios where it could be used – there are always other options. At that point we will take a look at the plugin configuration and see how to split your different subscriptions to multiple topics and servers.

In your experience, does Zabbix lend itself easily to the IoT generally and MQTT data specifically?

I never feel like it’s necessary to have the color of my lights in Zabbix, but the power usage of my appliances, temperatures, particular matter in my rooms, that’s data you can monitor and alert on! MQTT is a great and easy way to do that, as writing API calls for every device would be very time consuming.

What changes do you think MQTT data and the IoT will bring to the world of monitoring over the next decade or so?

With more and more devices capable of measuring different things, we can gather more data than ever before. As the prices of sensors keep dropping, we can measure about anything we want on any place you want. By using a standard protocol, such as MQTT, you will have a uniform way of handling the data. IoT will help us save power and make life easier!

The post Feeding Zabbix MQTT Data with Ivo Schooneman appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Change is the Only Constant: 2024 in Review

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/change-is-the-only-constant-2024-in-review/29528/

Time waits for no one, and as impossible as it may seem, one of the most consequential years in the history of Zabbix is already in the books. You can be forgiven for feeling at times like we were trying to cram a decade of events into a single year, which is why we’ve prepared this handy look back at the highlights of 2024 – just in case there’s anything you were too busy to notice as it happened!

Re-imagining the product

One of the year’s unquestioned highlights was the long-awaited release of Zabbix Cloud on October 1. As our first new product release since the creation of Zabbix, Zabbix Cloud is designed to provide the Zabbix features our community members know and love, but with easier deployment and management as well as automatic upgrades and easier scalability.

To celebrate the release itself, we held a release party at our Riga HQ with members of our global community who were in town for Zabbix Summit 2024, which kicked off a few days later. The release definitely got our community talking – the level of interest in this new “portable” version of Zabbix exceeded even our highest expectations.

Our team also released Zabbix 7.0 LTS on June 4, packed full of improvements and upgrades that our users have been asking for, including upgraded performance and scalability, new ways to visualize data, faster network discovery speed, and more. We followed that in December with the release of Zabbix 7.2, which added improved monitoring features and workflows as well as a host of new templates.

It can’t be stressed enough – all these new products, innovations, and updates were the result of feedback and suggestions from our global community. We listen, we learn, and we take your ideas to heart!

Security first

In 2024, Zabbix transitioned to the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, with an extended scope to cover Zabbix Cloud. This milestone also includes compliance with ISO/IEC 27017:2015, further enhancing cloud-specific security controls.

Meanwhile, the HackerOne bug bounty program continues to be a success. 2024 brought us 33 valid submissions, and we paid $35,000 in bounties. Out of those, we have already fixed and published 24 vulnerabilities for source code.

The Zabbix CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) program and processes are also continuing to mature. Recently, an audit was performed against our organization’s CVE submission for 40 submissions in the NIST NVD (National Vulnerability Database). Not only did we pass the audit and gain contributor status, but Zabbix is currently the only CVE Numbering Authorities (CNA) in Latvia.

Making our presence felt

Our community members piled up the frequent flier miles as we traveled the globe to keep in touch with our ever-expanding community and win over new converts. The events we took part in this year included the following:

• 31 meetings (with first-time visits to many destinations in North America)
• 1 forum in Mexico City
• 18 meetups (both online and in a variety of global locations)
• 4 conferences (Benelux, China, Japan, and Latin America)
• Far too many exhibitions, trade fairs, and expos to list conveniently
• One extremely successful Zabbix Summit in Riga

“The long hours and even longer flights really paid off, as this year was our most successful yet in terms of new business. The events we held in North America were especially helpful in terms of breaking new ground. We understood that we have an amazing Zabbix community in the United States and a much bigger market to work with.” – Ronalds Sulcs, Zabbix Head of Sales

A year of continuous growth

2024 saw us add new team members in every location we operate in, while also recruiting remote workers from nearly every corner of the globe. All told, the team grew by 30 people, which means we are now almost 200 strong! Meanwhile, the Partners team was also operating at full throttle, adding 12 new highly-skilled Certified Partners and 16 Resellers in locations from Australia to Morocco. All partners and resellers were chosen for their unique blend of experience and expertise, and we’re confident that they’ll provide best-in-class knowledge where it’s needed most.

The fact that we’ve managed to build on our status as an employer of choice across three continents while adding an ever-increasing number of quality partners in every corner of the globe speaks to the hard work and competence of our colleagues as well as the quality of the products and services we provide. Congratulations to everyone who did their part to make sure we continue to add talent and expertise!

Giving back

2024 was an exceptionally successful year in terms of bringing our products and services to the world, but we’re proud of the fact that we also managed to export our values of openness, transparency, and a desire to give back to the communities we live and work in. This took multiple forms throughout the year:

• The LatAm team worked with the DEDICA Foundation – Foundation for Digital Development and Open Knowledge to create the Zabbix Innova Challenge. The challenge is designed to encourage creativity and stimulate technological development in local communities through a Hackathon and other activities, with the goal of introducing Zabbix to a new generation of tech talent.
• In December, we made a generous donation to Pārtikas banka “Paēdušai Latvijai” (Food Bank “For a Full Latvia”) in support of their mission of getting nutritious food to communities in need. We also gave to support Bērnu slimnīcas fonds, Latvijas Bērnu fonds, Autisma atbalsta punkts, and Ziedot.lv – all with the goal of supporting children’s health, while our employees in the Riga office prepared gifts for senior citizens at the Rīga Social Care Center Mežciems as part of the “Eņģeļa pasts (Angel’s Mail)” charity project, Santa’s Workshop.
• The end of the year also saw us contribute €50,000 to Dod pieci!, the Latvian charity marathon organized by Latvijas Radio, Latvijas Televīzija, LSM.lv, and Ziedot.lv. The marathon helps make life-saving cancer treatment more affordable.

It’s been our experience that making a difference and donating to good causes reinforces a shared commitment to the company as well as to each other. We’d like to thank and congratulate everyone who took part in our outreach efforts over the past year!

Getting noticed

The news about what we got up to in 2024 seemed to be everywhere, as tech journals, newspapers, and global organizations showered us with positive publicity. At Interop Tokyo 2024, the Zabbix Japan team picked up the prestigious “Best of Show” Grand Prize in the Management and Monitoring category for the Zabbix 7.0 LTS release. The award is granted by a jury made up of some of the world’s most knowledgeable IT and monitoring experts, so recognition was truly an honor.

In Latin America, Milenio published a profile of our CEO and Founder Alexei Vladishev that brought the Zabbix story to thousands of new readers, while Mexico’s Encuentro Vidal marked the occasion of Zabbix Conference Mexico in November with a look at how Zabbix is helping countries in the region on their journey to digital transformation.

Globo published a well-written and informative piece that explored how the Brazilian city of Extrema has been investing in new technologies (with Zabbix prominent among them) in order to better serve the population of the city and make its administration more efficient and transparent.

Carrying our momentum into 2025

As 2025 gets underway, remember to stay on top of Zabbix news by following us on social media, reading our blog, and checking our forum.

“2024 was an eventful year that was full of excitement, growth, and change. It was the year we made Zabbix Cloud a reality, and a true milestone in the growth of our company and our community. I’m sure that everyone in the Zabbix family is excited to see what our 20th Anniversary year of 2025 will bring!” – Alexei Vladishev, Zabbix Founder and CEO

 

The post Change is the Only Constant: 2024 in Review appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Zabbix Summit 2024 in Review

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/zabbix-summit-2024-in-review/28901/

In what has become a highly anticipated annual tradition, Zabbix employees, partners, users, and just plain fans from every corner of the globe showed up in Riga on October 4 and 5 for Zabbix Summit 2024, celebrating a very special open-source monitoring solution that unites us all.

The 12th in-person version of our premier yearly event saw delegates arrive from 48 different countries, and just as every year the atmosphere was like a family reunion, with old friends reconnecting, remote colleagues meeting for the first time in person, and plenty of good vibes all around.

In case you couldn’t manage to make it to Riga and participate, fear not – we’ve put together this post to try to give you a taste of what Zabbix Summit 2024 was all about. As long-time Zabbix veterans say, “There’s nothing like a Zabbix Summit!”

And now, a word from our sponsors

Zabbix Summit 2024 could never have happened without the assistance of our featured sponsors, all part of Zabbix’s official partner network:

• initMAX – Diamond Sponsor
• IntelliTrend – Platinum Sponsor
• IZI-IT – Platinum Sponsor
• Quadrata – Platinum Sponsor
• Allenta – Gold Sponsor
• Metricio – Gold Sponsor
• Docomo Business – Gold Sponsor
• SRA OSS – Silver Sponsor
• Inqbeo – Lunch and coffee break sponsor

Opening doors and minds alike

The day before the Summit, our team welcomed dozens of guests to our office for the traditional pre-Summit Open-Door day. We provided a whiteboard where attendees could leave their thoughts about Zabbix, set up a special Zabbix quiz, and organized a guided tour of the office. Countless questions were asked and answered, endless cups of coffee were poured, and a friendly, welcoming vibe was established that lasted through the end of the Summit and beyond.

Live from the main stage

This year’s Summit hosted 36 speakers who gave 34 speeches. Allowing our audience to ask questions during live Q&A sessions proved so popular last year that there was little doubt we’d continue it this year, as it promotes audience participation and keeps the speakers themselves on their toes. Here are brief recaps of a few of the standout speeches:

Zabbix Cloud and the way forward

Our CEO and Founder Alexei Vladishev kicked off the presentations with a keynote speech that introduced Zabbix Cloud and listed all the features that make it a secure, flexible, and functional alternative to the Zabbix we all know and love. Alexei also gave a short preview of the upcoming Zabbix 7.2 version. Stay tuned!

An intro to Zabbix Cloud

Zabbix Head of Product Dmitrijs Lamberts provided a deeper dive into Zabbix Cloud, sharing detailed information on how Zabbix Cloud works, providing insight into the pricing tiers, and explaining all the features and benefits that have the Zabbix community buzzing with excitement, whetting the audience’s appetite for a live demo he conducted on Day 2 of the Summit.

Using Zabbix to monitor solar energy

Mitsuhiro Ono of the Toyota Motor Corporation and Toshihiro Akamatsu of SRA OSS showed how they achieve distributed monitoring with Zabbix. They also demonstrated a case study that showed exactly how they use their Zabbix dashboard to provide the kind of detailed solar energy oversight that makes the adoption of green power in Japan possible.

Keeping tabs on MariaDB

On Day 2 of the Summit, Anders Karlsson of the MariaDB Corporation discussed how to monitor and manage MariaDB Server Clusters running with the MariaDB MaxScale database proxy. He also demonstrated how MariaDB MaxScale (which also monitors the MariaDB Servers) comes into the picture and touched on topics like managing failover, monitoring database traffic, and routing and load balancing.

Meeting security challenges with Zabbix

Gabriele Minniti and Vincenzo Morrone of Whysecurity demonstrated how the power of the Zabbix API can combine with the APIs of the vendors they work with to create centralized dashbords for controlling the cybersecurity posture of all their customers, no matter what technologies are being used.

The business track

For the first time at Zabbix Summit 2024, we constructed a second stage for slightly less technical, more business-oriented presentations. The speeches delivered there were among the most thought-provoking and fascinating of the Summit, and did much to help us reach new audiences. Here are a few highlights:

An evolving IT monitoring landscape

Zabbix LatAm CEO Luciano Alves gave a well-received talk that focused on the latest trends in the global monitoring market, presenting the results of a survey that took the pulse of over 100 global enterprise organizations.

Zabbix for managed service providers (MSPs)

Andre Morton of AGM Network Consultancy explained why having a flexible and scalable monitoring solution is extremely vital for MSPs and showed how a variety of different features, from authentication mechanisms to automatic remediation and visualization, work together to make Zabbix the perfect monitoring solution for MSPs.

Yes, we still had time for fun!

The Zabbix community works together, innovates together, and when it’s time to let off steam they have fun together at our Summit networking events, of which there were three this year:

  • This year’s welcome event was held at the architecturally stunning National Library of Latvia – or as Latvians call it, “The Castle of Light.” Tasty beverages and delicious food were on the menu, as was a guided tour of the library itself.
  • The main event was held at Riga’s famed Fantadroms Concert and Event Space, where attendees could dance to live music and enjoy more food and drinks as they caught up with friends and forged valuable connections with their counterparts in other organizations.
  • We sent the community on their way with a closing event at the Burzma food hall in Riga’s old town, with a cornucopia of food and music from around the world as well as plenty of opportunities for attendees to relive the Summit, have a few laughs, and wish each other well until next year!

Couldn’t make it this year? No problem!

At this point, you’re probably regretting that you didn’t manage to attend the Summit, but don’t worry – you can recreate the atmosphere in the privacy of your own home or office!

Recordings of both days are available on Zabbix’s YouTube channel:

Streaming – Zabbix Summit 2024 Day 1 
Streaming – Zabbix Summit 2024 Day 2

The slides and texts of the presentations are also available for reference and download here as well.

Whether you attended in person or streamed the Summit online, we hope that you had a great time, learned a lot, and are eager to do it all again in 2025!

The post Zabbix Summit 2024 in Review appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Blending Zabbix and AI with Tomáš Heřmánek

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/blending-zabbix-and-ai-with-tomas-hermanek/28832/

Zabbix Summit 2024 is only a few days away, which means that it’s time for the last of our interviews with Summit speakers. Our final chat this year is with Tomáš Heřmánek, the CEO and Founder of initMAX s.r.o. We asked him about his beginnings in the tech industry, how he got started with Zabbix, and how AI will change the game for monitoring in general and Zabbix in particular.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to initMAX.

My journey in the IT field started with small ISPs and later took a significant leap into the world of Linux and application management, where the need for effective monitoring became evident. I worked for a company that prioritized high-quality open-source solutions, and it was during this time that we adopted Zabbix version 1.8 as a replacement for Nagios, which we found to be inflexible. Shortly after our deployment, Zabbix 2.0 was released. It introduced JMX monitoring, which was crucial for us. Since then, Zabbix has been our go-to solution for monitoring.

I set a personal goal to master this outstanding monitoring system and participated in the first official Zabbix training in the Czech Republic, where I earned my initial certifications as a Zabbix Specialist and Professional on version 3.0. The training experience drew me deeper into the world of Zabbix, especially after meeting a burgeoning group of enthusiasts in the country. I felt compelled to give back to the community that had supported me.

How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks does your team tackle on a daily basis?

When I started my own company, becoming a Zabbix partner was a natural choice. To further contribute to the community, I pursued the Expert and Trainer certifications. It was the most challenging 14 days of my life, but it was worth it. For anyone serious about Zabbix, I highly recommend participating in official training sessions and actively engaging with the community through forums, local groups, Telegram, WhatsApp, blogs, and forums. This commitment to support and strengthen the community further.is also why we created our own wiki, which is accessible to everyone without restrictions.

Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your Zabbix Summit presentation?

This year, I have prepared a demonstration for the Zabbix Summit showcasing how we integrate AI into our operations, including various modifications to the web interface that allow us to automate and streamline routine tasks. Besides showcasing these innovations, we will also be making some parts of our work available to the public. The main focus of my presentation will be on problem identification, automating the creation of preprocessing steps, and using a chatbot for creating hosts, reading configurations, and making modifications. Essentially, it’s a smart assistant and guide all in one.

The final section, which we find the most challenging, deals with automated event correlation and the creation of a topology, from which correlations partially derive and evaluate. We are using the new Zabbix 7.0 feature – root cause and symptoms – for visualization in Zabbix. Our goal is to showcase not only the capabilities of Zabbix in combination with AI, but also to contribute back to the community by sharing some of these developments freely.

In your experience, does Zabbix lend itself easily to enhancement via AI?

AI is something that truly fascinates us and is currently shaping the world. From our experience, we believe that the possibilities are limited only by our imagination. In the future, I can envision AI autonomously discovering elements that need to be monitored, integrating them into Zabbix, and configuring everything necessary for effective monitoring.

What changes do you think AI will bring to the world of monitoring in general over the next decade or so?

I foresee a shift in our roles, moving away from traditional IT tasks towards a focus on idea generation, control, and the customization of artificial intelligence. As AI continues to evolve, it will not only enhance automation but also empower us to explore and implement innovative solutions more effectively.

The post Blending Zabbix and AI with Tomáš Heřmánek appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Zabbix for MSPs with Andre Morton

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/zabbix-for-msps-with-andre-morton/28748/

To help make sure that everyone’s up to speed with Zabbix Summit 2024 speakers and their topics, we’re continuing our series of interviews with Andre Morton of AGM Network Consultancy LTD. Keep reading to learn how he feels Zabbix can alleviate the typical pain points of managed service providers (MSPs), see how he uses Zabbix to maintain control of his network, and find out what he appreciates most about Zabbix.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to AGM Network Consultancy LTD.

I started out studying Network Engineering at the University of Greenwich, and then went on to undertake a Masters of Networks and Security at the University of Kent. During my Masters, I was the a one-man IT Team for a Child Care agency spanning the UK. I then went on to work at three small IT companies/MSPs, being the only Network Engineer at each company and managing networks with 80 – 200 customers.

How long have you been using Zabbix? How has it impacted your everyday tasks?

I have been using Zabbix for about 10 years now. At first, I just used it to get insights via SNMP. Then I began using it to create visual troubleshooting aids for myself and non-networking team members. Finally, I began using Zabbix as my main inventory gathering tool for networking and infrastructure devices. When it comes to that, Zabbix has enabled me to control how I want to monitor the network, avoiding vendor limitations and allowing me to build my own scripts to run tests and actions that I would not otherwise be able to do.

Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your Zabbix Summit presentation?

I may have to condense some things, as I don’t want to be too technical or take too long! I’ll definitely talk about what drew me to Zabbix, how I used Zabbix to turn problems that require a large amount of attention and time into scripts that can identify the problems and capture the problem states, and how Zabbix dashboards help me to get a clear overview of customer and site problems/general status. I’ll also speak about scripts that we now use to troubleshoot and undertake remote actions, give examples of what the value of the monitoring data is to MSPs before and after the problem, and let everyone in on my upcoming plans for Zabbix, which include webhooks from the map, scripts; Zabbix’s place in our bespoke systems, and network automation.

What, in your opinion, are the biggest pain points MSPs have, and how can Zabbix help alleviate them?

I’d say that there are two big pain points that Zabbix is of assistance with – providing troubleshooting time for big problems, and making sure that historical data is ready for troubleshooting.

What do you appreciate the most about Zabbix in your role?

Zabbix allows me to drastically reduce the amount of administration and troubleshooting that I have to undertake and provides a live inventory of devices (software/firmware details). Thanks to Zabbix, I don’t have to use multiple tools or log into multiple devices to get software and firmware version details.

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Monitoring MariaDB Clusters and MaxScale with Anders Karlsson

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/monitoring-mariadb-clusters-and-maxscale-with-anders-karlsson/28718/

The heart and soul of a Zabbix Summit is the wide range of expert speakers who show up each year to share their experience, knowledge, and discoveries. Accordingly, we’re continuing our series of interviews with Summit 2024 speakers by having a chat with MariaDB Sales Engineer Anders Karlsson. He’ll grace our stage at Summit 2024  to talk about his 4 decades of work experience and share how he uses a variety of Zabbix features to monitor MariaDB clusters and MariaDB MaxScale.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to MariaDB.

I have been working with databases nearly all of my professional life, which is more than 40 years by now. My first IT job was as a system administrator on a development system for Telco equipment running UNIX on a PDP/11 70. This was fun, and I got to use Unix very early (the early 1980’s) and I was also there at the start of the Internet (by emailing through UUCP to the US and then through what was then the Internet).

Following that, I joined another Telco company, which used a rather unknown database technology called Oracle (version 4.1.4). When this company moved their operations from Stockholm (where I lived) to Luxembourg, I decided to leave and look for other opportunities. I heard that Oracle was looking for people and I got a job there as a support engineer. At Oracle I soon got involved with lots of things beyond Tech Support – I was a trainer, a consultant, and eventually a sales engineer.

I left Oracle in the early 1990’s to join a small application development company as a developer, but this really wasn’t for me, so I soon left and joined Informix instead. I was at Informix until 1996 or so and then I worked for some other small companies around the end of the millennium. Next, I joined forces with a couple of old friends to develop a database solution. This wasn’t very successful, and I still needed a job.

I first ended up with TimesTen before they ran out of luck. After a year or so of freelancing, I was approached by an old friend from the Informix days who was now the sales manager for MySQL in Scandinavia. I joined MySQL in 2004 as a sales engineer and was there until Oracle took over. I then worked for a small Swedish startup for a couple of years, but I missed sales engineering, so when I got an offer to join MariaDB in 2012 I said yes.

How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix tasks do you get up to on a daily basis?

I have known about Zabbix and used it occasionally for a while, but while preparing for Zabbix Summit 2024 I have gotten to use it “in anger” a bit more. There are pros and cons to it, but in general I like it. It does have a lot of “Open Source” feel to it, but that is not really an issue for me.

Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your Zabbix Summit presentation?

I will focus on monitoring MariaDB Clusters running Galera Cluster and the MariaDB MaxScale database proxy. Monitoring individual MariaDB servers is easy out of the box with Zabbix, but when you have a cluster you have to monitor certain cluster-wide attributes. MariaDB MaxScale keeps track of the state of the server in the cluster in detail and the cluster as whole, and I will show how to pull cluster-wide data from MaxScale using the MaxScale REST/JSON API and how to use that to build triggers and graphs in Zabbix. I will finish up by doing a demo of this with MariaDB MaxScale and a Galera Cluster.

What led you to the topic of Monitoring MariaDB Clusters and MariaDB MaxScale with Zabbix?

The main thing was that although there are community provided Zabbix templates for MariaDB MaxScale, and Galera can be monitored largely by the Zabbix agent, using these typically does not provide as much in terms of cluster-wide monitoring as I would like. It’s important to know how the reads and writes are distributed, what the state of the database cluster is, etc.

How do you see the role of Zabbix in MariaDB in the near future? Are you planning to use it for any other new tasks?

My next goal is to see if I can write a blog for MariaDB on Zabbix monitoring with some emphasis on MariaDB MaxScale.

The post Monitoring MariaDB Clusters and MaxScale with Anders Karlsson appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Providing Best-in-Class Security with Heather Diaz of fTLD Registry

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/providing-best-in-class-security-with-heather-diaz-of-ftld-registry/28585/

As the Vice President of Compliance and Policy at fTLD Registry Services, Heather Diaz is a security expert with over a decade of experience in ensuring the legal, compliance, and strategic alignment of the top-level domains .Bank and .Insurance. She is a compliance and ethics professional and leads the policy and security compliance functions at fTLD.

We sat down with her to learn more about how Zabbix makes her job easier, why she appreciates the inherent flexibility of our solutions, and how she works with our team to help make sure fTLD’s domains are as secure as they can possibly be.

Can you give us a bit of background on fTLD and what it does? What makes your business proposition stand out?

fTLD Registry is the domain authority for .Bank and .Insurance – the most trusted and exclusive domain extensions for banks, insurers, and producers. Our mission is to offer these industry-created and governed domains a shield against cyberattacks and fraud, delivering peace of mind with website and email security.

Since 2011, fTLD Registry has collaborated with experts in cybersecurity, domain security, and the banking and insurance sectors to develop Security Requirements that mitigate cyber threats such as phishing, spoofing, cybersquatting, and man-in-the-middle attacks.

Why is monitoring especially important for fTLD?

Security monitoring is a key value for .Bankers (banks who have switched to .Bank) and our .Insurance customers as well. They receive reporting from our customized Zabbix monitoring system whenever security vulnerabilities are detected. This ensures we provide proactive compliance security monitoring, which allows them to address any findings and keep their .Bank and .Insurance websites and email channels secure.

Are there any specific points you were looking to address with a new monitoring approach?

fTLD has continued to enhance our security requirements for .Bank and .Insurance to address new and evolving cybersecurity threats and provide more secure and trusted online interactions for the financial services sector and their customers. We do this by partnering with Zabbix’s security experts and engineers to make sure our security requirements and monitoring continue to provide best-in-class domain security for .Bank and .Insurance.

Can you please share any business or operational areas that have seen improvements since implementing Zabbix?

Our compliance area has enjoyed having time to engage with .Bank and .Insurance customers to educate them about how to address any security vulnerabilities, as the Zabbix system takes care of sending notifications and warnings to our customers. Not only that, the Zabbix system gives us a dashboard with easy-to-interpret metrics, the ability to generate ad-hoc reporting, and with a number of important data elements integrated, such as customer contact information and their domain status (e.g., live), so our team can always have secure employee access to security monitoring data no matter where in the world we are working. Here are just some of the external interfaces, Agent2 plugins, and custom notifications we developed together with the Zabbix team.

External interfaces:

  • ICANN CZDS (to get a list of zones)
  • Whois (to get zone and registrar details)
  • CRM (to get a list of verification contacts)
  • Marketing system (to get a list of additional zone details)
  • Subdomain discoverer (to discover zone records)

Agent2 plugins

  • DNSSEC plugin (for DNSSEC-related checks)
  • Nameservers plugin (to perform nameserver-related checks)
  • Certificate plugin (to validate TLS ciphers and certificates)
  • Port check plugin (to check what ports are open and verify the security of opened ports)
  • DMARC/SPF plugin (to check presence and validity of DMARC and SPF records)
  • Web redirect plugin (to check validity of HTTP headers and redirects)

Notifications

  • Media types to send compliance reports

Is there anything else you’d like to share about Zabbix and our capabilities?

Zabbix is a great partner for security monitoring, as they’re willing to develop new features to provide a service that meets our exacting business requirements and their support is highly responsive. Most solutions come as they are. With Zabbix, we were able to customize and adapt their solution when new needs came up. My favorite feature is how we provide automated reporting to our customers and key stakeholders – it’s all automated and handled by the Zabbix platform.

The post Providing Best-in-Class Security with Heather Diaz of fTLD Registry appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Reducing Alert Noise with Birol Yildiz

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/reducing-alert-noise-with-birol-yildiz/28643/

Zabbix Summit 2024 is almost here, and we’re giving you a sneak peek into what you can expect to see on our main stage this year via a series of short interviews with a few of the eminent speakers who will grace us with their presence. First up is Birol Yildiz, the CEO and Co-founder of ilert GmbH and a man who is deeply passionate about keeping alert noise and fatigue to a minimum.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to ilert GmbH.

My journey in the tech industry began with a deep passion for creating solutions that simplify and improve the lives of IT professionals. Before co-founding ilert GmbH, I spent over a decade working in various IT roles, ranging from software development to operations. I noticed that while monitoring systems were becoming increasingly sophisticated, the process of alert management and incident response was lagging behind.

This gap inspired me to create ilert, a platform focused on bridging that divide by optimizing alerting processes and reducing response times. Our goal at ilert has always been to empower teams with the tools they need to stay ahead of incidents, ensuring that their systems run smoothly and efficiently.

How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks are you involved in on a daily basis?

Zabbix has been an integral part of ilert since 2018, when we first developed one of our early integrations with the platform. Recognizing its popularity among our customer base, we enhanced this integration in 2020, transforming it into a native integration and solidifying our partnership with Zabbix as a technology partner. Since then, Zabbix has become one of the most popular integrations within ilert.

On a daily basis, my involvement with Zabbix includes overseeing the continued optimization of our integration, ensuring that it meets the evolving needs of our users. I work closely with our development and support teams to identify and implement improvements based on user feedback and the latest developments from Zabbix.

Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your Zabbix Summit presentation?

Alert fatigue has long been a significant challenge for the DevOps community, often leading to decreased efficiency and increased stress among professionals. In my presentation, we will explore innovative strategies that leverage AI to mitigate alert noise.

I’ll be discussing how to maximize the efficiency of your incident response process by leveraging Zabbix with advanced alerting and on-call management tools like ilert. I’ll share insights on reducing alert fatigue, improving incident response times, and ensuring that critical alerts reach the right people at the right time.

This talk will be particularly valuable for DevOps engineers looking to optimize their alert management systems and reduce the cognitive load caused by alert fatigue. Zabbix administrators will find it insightful, especially if they are interested in integrating advanced AI techniques into their monitoring workflows to achieve better performance and reliability.

Moreover, AI and machine learning enthusiasts will gain practical knowledge about applying AI in IT monitoring and alerting, making this session a comprehensive resource for anyone looking to advance their alert management strategies.

Reducing alert noise is something that’s on almost everyone’s wish list, but was there any particular incident or aspect of your professional life that made you want to focus on this topic?

Absolutely. There was a specific incident early in my career that left a lasting impact on me. We were using a monitoring system that generated a significant number of alerts, most of which were non-critical. One weekend, a critical issue was buried in a flood of low-priority alerts, leading to a delayed response and significant downtime for the business.

This incident underscored the importance of not just having a monitoring system in place but ensuring that it was configured to minimize noise and prioritize what truly matters. That experience drove me to focus on creating solutions that help teams filter out the noise and respond quickly to what’s really important, which is a core principle behind ilert’s offerings.

Are there any other similar issues that you can envision tackling with Zabbix?

Yes, beyond reducing alert noise, there’s a lot of potential in enhancing the collaboration between teams during incidents. For example, automating incident communication and resolution processes is an area where I see great value. By integrating Zabbix with incident management platforms like ilert, teams can not only reduce noise but also streamline communication, ensuring that the right people are involved at the right time and that resolution steps are clear and actionable.

Another area is optimizing the way multiple on-call teams work together using Zabbix and incident response platforms like ilert. In many organizations, different teams are responsible for specific sets of host groups in Zabbix, and it’s crucial that each team only receives alerts for the services they are directly responsible for. These are just a few examples of how we can continue to evolve our approach to incident management in conjunction with Zabbix.

The post Reducing Alert Noise with Birol Yildiz appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

What’s in Store at Summit ‘24?

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/whats-in-store-at-summit-24/28649/

October means different things to different people – it’s springtime in the Southern Hemisphere, autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and Summit time if you’re a member of the Zabbix community! Summit time, of course, means the biggest of all Zabbix events, gathering the global Zabbix community in one place to have fun together and learn as much as we can from each other. Zabbix Summit 2024 will take place on October 3-5 in Riga at the Radisson Blu Hotel Latvija. Keep reading to find out more about what you can expect this year.

All new main stage presentations

During Zabbix Summit 2024, you’ll be able to catch a variety of presentations from top industry thought leaders. You’ll learn all about the latest Zabbix features, explore use cases from multiple industries, check out the latest integrations, and have the chance to get your questions answered during live Q&A sessions.

The Summit agenda will feature speeches on nearly any Zabbix-related topic that you can imagine, but this year we’ll also have a fresh focus on the potential of artificial intelligence, with presentations on topics like “New Approaches to Reduce Alert Noise with Zabbix and AIOps” and “Leveraging AI for Synthetic Web Monitoring” as well as a more business-focused group of speeches covering topics related to open-source integration and Zabbix for MSPs.

Hands-on learning in Zabbix Summit workshops

Zabbix Summit workshops are the ideal place to put the theory you learn during presentations into practice. You can check out the latest features and use cases in action, while performing a variety of real-world tasks under the guidance of workshop hosts and their assistants – many of whom are also featured presenters at this year’s Summit.

All you’ll need to do is bring your own laptop – depending on the topic covered in the particular workshop, an SSH client and a web browser may also be required. All workshop sessions will take place on the morning of October 5 (Day 2 of the Summit) and will begin at 10AM.

Zabbix Certified Training sessions and exams

Do you have a lifetime of monitoring experience, but are too shy to let everyone know it? When you attend Zabbix Summit 2024, you’ll be able to prove your skills as a Zabbix specialist or professional by taking part in Zabbix Certified Training sessions and exams. If you’re looking for more specific topics to dive into, the following one-day courses will also be held from October 2 through October 4:

  • Automation and Integration with Zabbix API
  • Advanced Problem and Anomaly Detection with Zabbix
  • Advanced Zabbix Data Pre-Processing
  • Advanced Zabbix SNMP Monitoring

If you don’t mind extending your stay in Riga just a bit longer (and seriously, why would you?), you’ll also be able to take the full Zabbix Certified Specialist or Professional courses scheduled for October 9-13. Please remember that you can choose more than one training course, and it’s possible to attend the courses (without the 10% Summit discount) even if you’re not attending the Summit.

You can sign up for all training sessions and exams here.

The Zabbix Summit Feedback and Testimonial corner

Just as at last year’s Summit, you’ll be able to share your Zabbix story with the rest of the Zabbix community at our Feedback and Testimonial corner. Sharing a testimonial or leaving a review will give you a chance to collect a piece of exclusive Zabbix Summit 2024 merchandise!

Exclusive items, cool new designs, and unique gadgets at our merchandise shop

Speaking of merch, you’ll be pleased to know that not only will exclusive Zabbix Summit merchandise be available at a special stand throughout the event, but we’ll also have an online platform that will allow you to pre-order your merchandise and pick it up at the Summit. We’ve got 5 exclusive new t-shirt designs, 4 fresh sock designs, brand-new beanies, and the usual assortment of gadgets, hoodies, and other merch that our fans have come to know and love – most of which has also gotten a new look for this year’s Summit as well.

Three incredible Zabbix Summit 2024 networking events

There’s a lot to take in and consider at a Zabbix Summit, but don’t worry – we’ve also made sure to give you plenty of time to network with your fellow Zabbix fans by organizing three big events that you won’t want to miss!

  • The Zabbix Summit 2024 welcome event will be held at the famous National Library of Latvia – or as Latvians call it, “The Castle of Light.” You’ll enjoy tasty beverages, delicious food, and a guided tour of the library as you mingle with fellow Zabbix enthusiasts and industry experts, making this the perfect way to kick off this year’s Summit.
  • You’ll want to prepare yourself for a truly unforgettable experience as the Zabbix Summit main event unfolds. We’re sure that you’ll find Riga’s famous Fantadroms Concert and Event Space to be the ideal place to forge valuable connections with like-minded professionals – while indulging in a unique array of culinary delights, refreshing beverages, and great music.
  • After all that, we’ll send you on your way with a closing event that will be the perfect grand finale to a Summit that you won’t soon forget! Located in the heart of Old Riga, Burzma is a food hall that spans 1,500 square meters across the entire fourth floor of a bustling shopping mall. With stunning rooftop views to inspire your dining experience, Burzma offers 10 restaurants and a bar serving up a diverse range of culinary delights.

A chance to see where the magic happens during our Open-Door day

In what has become a popular tradition, Zabbix will host an Open-Door day on Thursday, October 3 from 1PM to 3PM local time. You’ll be able to chat with Zabbix team members, tour our headquarters, and take part in a fun activity designed to help you learn more about Zabbix.

Booths galore!

As usual, the Zabbix team will have multiple booths in the conference hall where you can meet our engineers and developers and get your questions answered by the people who know best. Our Summit sponsors will have booths of their own as well, where you can enjoy a unique opportunity to interact with them on a personal level and get the lowdown on the solutions they offer.

Special events for support customers

All Zabbix support customers are invited to meet our team at a special Zabbix client lunch on October 3 at 14:00 (EEST), with the exact location to be announced at a later date. What’s more, Enterprise and Global support customers are also invited to the Zabbix roadmap Q&A session with Zabbix CEO and Founder Alexei Vladishev on October 5 at 10AM. You’ll learn about our software development plans and be able to raise questions or make suggestions based on your experience – definitely an opportunity you won’t want to miss!

Which Zabbix Summit ticket is right for you?

If you want to enjoy the full Zabbix Summit experience (conference, accommodation, food, even airport transfers), the Full Participation ticket package is definitely for you.

For loyal users who have contributed so much to our product over the years, the Zabbix Fan package is definitely the way to go – it includes everything you’ll get with the Full Participation package, plus a special official fan package that will guarantee you bragging rights in your office once you return from Riga.

If you’re only there for the sessions, the Hall only pass is ideal. If you enjoy both learning and networking with our team and enthusiasts from around the world, we think you’ll find the Hall and Networking pass to be perfect for your needs.

Want to bring a friend or partner along to the summit? No problem — get a Zabbix Summit Travel Companion pass for them so you can stay together and attend networking events, while we handle the rest of their Riga experience.

The Companion pass includes 3 nights’ accommodation in the Radisson Blu Latvija hotel (in the same room as the Summit attendee), 3 breakfasts, and 3 networking events, but that’s not all – we’ll also include an exclusive tour of Riga on October 4 with an English-speaking guide.

The tour features a visit to the Ethnographic Open-Air Museum of Latvia, and runs from approximately 10AM to 4PM, including lunch and some workshop activities at the museum. You can learn more about the museum here.

Visit this page to sign up for the ticket package of your choice.

Livestreaming on YouTube

We hope to see you soon in Riga, but if you can’t make it, don’t worry – as in previous years, we’re going to be livestreaming the speeches on our YouTube channel! Stay tuned for more details.

The post What’s in Store at Summit ‘24? appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Open-Source Security: The Zabbix Advantage

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/open-source-security-the-zabbix-advantage/28523/

At Zabbix, we’ve championed the open-source movement, with its emphasis on openness, transparency, and cooperation, from day one. Because of this, prospective customers and partners often have questions about the security of our product – the fear being that open-source software is somehow less secure than proprietary software.

In this post, we’ll provide a bit of background regarding how open-source software works, explain why fears about the security of open-source software are largely unfounded, and provide an overview of how the Zabbix team works to make sure that our product is as secure as it can possibly be.

A short open-source primer

At its most basic, open-source software is code that is available for anyone to modify and share in either its original or modified forms. It lets developers share their work without the restrictions of a proprietary license. The open-source movement is based on collaborative development and encourages the creation of high-quality software by tapping into the creativity and enthusiasm of a global community of developers.

Zabbix itself is an open-source solution covered by the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3). The Zabbix source code is readily available and can be redistributed or modified – anyone with a great idea can create their own version of Zabbix. Apart from Zabbix, many well-known and widely used software solutions have emerged from the open-source movement, including Mozilla’s Firefox browser, the WordPress content management system, VLC Media Player, and the Linux operating system.

Open-source software and security

Data security is an issue that unites every company (and therefore every potential partner or client). Developers are constantly on the lookout for solutions that follow up-to-the-minute data and application security best practices in order to reduce risk and give users the most secure experience possible.

A common debate among both users and developers is whether open-source software is secure enough when compared to closed source alternatives. The good news is that there are massive efforts underway to help make sure that the open-source community is as safe as possible.

The Linux Foundation’s Community Health Analytics Open Source Software (CHAOSS) is a project that’s focused on creating a standard set of metrics and software to help define open source community health, and its GrimoireLab tool in particular makes it much easier for open-source projects to analyze and report their community health metrics.

Opinions vary regarding what makes for a truly secure environment, but quite possibly the biggest security advantage of open-source software is its transparency.

If you see something, say something

Open-source code is available for anyone to review, modify, and distribute. “Hold up,” you may be thinking – “If someone can see the whole code, can’t they just take advantage of a vulnerability if they see it?” The answer is that someone could certainly exploit a vulnerability, but because everybody can also see the code, there’s a far higher probability that someone else has also noticed the vulnerability in question and taken steps to correct it.

With open-source code, it’s usually much easier to get in touch with the developers and report issues directly to them than it is with a closed source project. This means a faster resolution of most security issues. Not only that, because the public is often allowed and encouraged to submit code improvements directly to the developers, anyone could submit the code to fix a vulnerability as a part of them reporting an issue. This leads to rigorous security scrutiny, with many eyes on the code, identifying and reporting vulnerabilities.

Think of it as the equivalent of a “neighborhood watch” program, in which organized groups of civilians devote themselves to crime and vandalism prevention within a neighborhood, ultimately making it safer and more secure for everyone.

No “waiting game” for updates

With standard closed source (or proprietary) software, users are completely at the mercy of the companies behind the software when it comes to getting software updates. Updates and fixes for high-profile closed source applications usually involve a great deal of complicated planning, and if there’s no budget or resources available, users might go months or even years before they see a new update, whether there are glaring security flaws or not.

Open-source solutions are also more agile when it comes to iterating and releasing new versions. This is down to any number of reasons, including the fact that open-source software has more eyes on the source code at any given time, plus a community-driven interest in making the product as good as it can be.

The Zabbix advantage

At Zabbix, we’ve long benefited from the inherent security advantages of being open-source. Because we’re enterprise-level open-source software, we’ve been able to adopt a “best of both worlds” approach that combines the flexibility and community policing of open-source with the knowledge that only a dedicated team of in-house security experts and robust security policies can provide.

If a member of our community notices a security vulnerability, the best way to make sure that it gets fixed as quickly as possible if for them to create a new issue in the Zabbix Security Reports (ZBXSEC) section of the public bug tracker, describing the problem (and a proposed solution if possible) in detail. This helps us make sure that only the Zabbix security team and the reporter have access to the case.

At that point, the Zabbix Security team reviews the issue and evaluates its potential impact. The team then works on the issue to provide a solution, creating new packages and making them available for download. Clients with support agreements are informed about security vulnerabilities that have been addressed and fixed, and given a window of opportunity to upgrade before the issue becomes known to the public. After that, a public announcement for the community is made.

Another potential security risk involves complex dependencies on other open-source libraries, where each dependency can introduce vulnerabilities if not properly managed. A perfect example of this is 2023’s repojacking attack on GitHub, in which a critical vulnerability in an open-source repository led to the exposure of over 4,000 other repositories.

To minimize the possibility of these supply chain attacks, we use tools that can generate an SBOM (Software Bill of Materials), which is basically a list of ingredients that make up software components. This makes it easy to keep track of each individual ingredient and take appropriate actions in the event of a red flag. What’s more, the fact that our clients are the sole owners of their data eliminates another potential source of security issues – unlike with other software vendors, there is no risk of an attacker accessing systems running Zabbix.

As an additional line of defense, we work with HackerOne, the world’s leading platform for ethical hackers, to maintain a Zabbix-specific bug bounty program that challenges the world’s most elite ethical hackers to find the weak spots in our code and let us know about them in time to fix them. We’re proud of the way that our community has done their part to help us make Zabbix as secure as possible, and we’re confident that with a few refinements we can pay out even more bug bounties in the future.

To learn more about the Zabbix approach to open-source security, please visit our website or get in touch with us.

The post Open-Source Security: The Zabbix Advantage appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Case Study: Enhancing Security with Zabbix and fTLD Registry

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/case-study-enhancing-security-with-zabbix-and-ftld-registry/28415/

A top-level domain (TLD) is the part of a URL that comes after the last dot in a domain name. While most are familiar with the first TLDs of .com, .net, and .org, there are more than 1,400 TLDs. fTLD Registry (fTLD) is a global coalition of banks, insurance companies, and financial services trade associations who ensure the .Bank and .Insurance TLDs are governed in the best interests of the financial sector and their customers.

The challenge

In 2011, fTLD was formed to secure and manage .Bank and .Insurance. Due to the high risk of fraud in the financial sector, keeping domains (websites and email) secure and out of the hands of malicious actors was paramount – and that can’t be done without close, careful security monitoring. Unfortunately, fTLD was initially dependent on a monitoring solution that required manual compliance work, which made it difficult to get actionable information to its customers and partners. When they began to seek out a replacement solution, fTLD realized that Zabbix promised exactly the features they required, which prompted them to make the switch.

The solution

For every domain in .Bank and .Insurance that meets minimum technical requirements, Zabbix’s system performs multiple security compliance checks. These checks cover a range of domain security features to ensure .Bank and .Insurance websites and email services have implemented a multi-layered domain defense by way of the Security Requirements required by fTLD. Specifically, Zabbix checks and monitors for:

  • Authoritative name servers, which guarantee that the name servers for .Bank and .Insurance websites have the required security features.
  • Enhanced DNS security, which involves the proper validation of DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) with strong cryptographic algorithms to prevent unauthorized changes to domain data and cyberattacks, including domain spoofing and domain hijacking.
  • Digital identity and robust encryption, which confirm TLS certificates and TLS version requirements for secure web connections and encrypts all communications for the safe and secure transmission of personal information and financial transactions.
  • Email security, which increases the deliverability of email and checks for the deployment of DMARC and SPF to protect against phishing and spoofing.

When Zabbix detects an issue, it automatically notifies involved parties, including the registrar and the customer using the domain. As a client, fTLD has access to all the security monitoring data via a custom dashboard. Zabbix puts critical compliance security monitoring information at fTLD’s fingertips, helping them make good on their promise of airtight security for banks, insurers, and producers and their customers through .Bank and .Insurance domains.

The results

Heather Diaz, Vice President, Compliance and Policy, leads the security function for fTLD and attests that:

“With Zabbix as a partner, we have peace of mind knowing that domain security is closely monitored. We can then focus on engaging with customers to help them get the full cyber benefits of using .Bank and .Insurance to protect their brand and their customer data.”

By entrusting Zabbix with security monitoring, fTLD has seen a variety of benefits, including:

  • Considerable growth in overall security compliance, as Zabbix monitoring has provided better, more accessible, and more reliable security information.
  • A tangible boost in productivity, thanks to automated customer and partner notifications.
  • A bird’s-eye view of stats across all domains as well as detailed information for individual domains.
  • Adaptive compliance security monitoring through daily checks, which help maintain a proactive defense against cyberattacks.
  • Security expertise from Zabbix to ensure that fTLD’s Security Requirements represent best practices and security measures to ensure the security of .Bank and .Insurance domains and their customers’ well-placed trust.

In conclusion

fTLD is changing the way banks, insurers, and producers around the world interact with their customers by offering trusted, verified, more secure domains. They trust Zabbix to guarantee a multi-layered domain defense strategy by alerting fTLD and its customers to detected anomalies or security issues.

To learn more about what Zabbix can do for customers in banking and finance, visit us here.

The post Case Study: Enhancing Security with Zabbix and fTLD Registry appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Zabbix 7.0 – Everything You Need to Know

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/zabbix-7-0-everything-you-need-to-know/28210/

After plenty of breathless anticipation, we’re proud to announce the release of the latest major Zabbix version – the new and improved Zabbix 7.0 LTS. This release is the direct result of user feedback and delivers a variety of improvements, including cloud-native Zabbix proxy scalability, website transaction monitoring, improved data collection speed and scalability, new dashboard widgets, major network discovery speed improvements, new templates and integrations, and more!

Without further ado, let’s take a whistle-stop tour of what you need to know:

Synthetic end-user web monitoring

Busy enterprises can now monitor multiple websites and applications by defining flexible multi-step browser-based scenarios. 7.0 LTS also makes it easy to capture screenshots of the current website state, collect and visualize website performance and availability metrics, extract, monitor, and analyze web application data, and get alerts when issues are discovered.

Zabbix proxy high availability and load balancing

When it’s time to expand, Zabbix 7.0 LTS makes it easy to scale a Zabbix environment, guaranteeing 100% availability with automatic proxy load balancing and high availability features, including the ability to assign hosts to load-balanced proxy groups and seamlessly scale a Zabbix environment by deploying additional proxies.

Faster, more efficient Zabbix proxies

Zabbix proxy now fully supports in-memory data storage for collected metrics. Users can choose from Disk, Memory, and Hybrid proxy buffer modes, all of which are ideal for embedded hardware. In addition, memory mode enables the support of edge computing use cases. Users can expect 10-100x better proxy performance by switching to memory or hybrid modes, depending on allocated hardware.

Centralized control of data collection timeouts

Centralizing control of data collection timeouts enables better support for metrics and custom checks, taking longer data collection time intervals. Data collection timeouts can be defined per item-type and overridden per proxy or on an individual item level. In addition, timeouts are now fully configurable in the Zabbix GUI or via Zabbix API.

Faster and more scalable data collection

Synchronous poller processes have been replaced with asynchronous pollers, which improves the speed and scalability of metric polling, particularly for agent, SNMP, and HTTP checks. The next metric can now be polled before waiting for a response from a previously requested metric, and up to 1,000 concurrent checks can now be supported per poller process.

New ways to visualize data

A variety of new dashboard widgets have been introduced, with the goal of giving users detailed information about their monitored metrics and infrastructure at a glance.

Dynamic dashboard widget navigation

Speaking of dashboard widgets, a new communication framework has also been introduced for dashboard widgets, enabling communication between widgets, allowing a widget to serve as a data source for other widgets, and dynamically updating information displayed in a dashboard widget based on the data source.

Faster network discovery

Discovering services and hosts has never been easier, thanks to support of parallelization while performing network discovery. Concurrency support allows for massive improvements in network discovery speed and simplifies host and service discovery while scanning large network segments.

Better security via enterprise-grade multi-factor authentication

Out-of-the box support of multi-factor authentication enables enterprise-grade security and added flexibility for configuring user authentication methods. Support MFA providers include time-based one-time Password (TOTP) and Duo Universal Prompt authentication.

More flexible resource discovery and management

Low-level discovery has received a variety of improvements, which enable enhanced host configuration and management flexibility when discovering hosts in complex environments, such as VMware or Kubernetes.

New templates and integrations

In response to user demand, Zabbix 7.0 LTS comes pre-packaged with a range of new templates for the most popular vendors and cloud providers.

Zabbix 7.0 training updates

All Zabbix training materials have been updated based on the new functionalities that have been added to the product since Zabbix 6.0.

Everyone is welcome to sharpen their skills, but if you’re a Zabbix 6.0 Certified Specialist or Certified Professional you can master Zabbix 7.0 LTS in just one day with our Upgrade Courses. As a 7.0 Specialist, you’ll be able to automate user provisioning with the Just-in-time (JIT) feature, monitor websites with new synthetic end-user monitoring, leverage new visualization features, and enhance the speed and performance of your data collection.

The 7.0 Certified Professional course covers proxy group configuration with high availability and load balancing, improved proxy data collection, new SNMP bulk monitoring, and enhanced host discovery for VMware, Kubernetes, and Cloud infrastructures.

We’re also happy to organize private trainings for organizations of any size, so don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Upcoming 7.0 events

If you’re looking for more information regarding Zabbix 7.0, you’re in luck! You can tune in to the “What’s new in Zabbix 7.0” webinar on June 11 at 12 PM CST or June 12 at 10 AM EEST. If you’d prefer a more hands-on approach, the following workshops are also available:

• “Zabbix Proxy High-availability and Load Balancing” (June 18, 6 PM EEST)
• “New Web Monitoring Features in Zabbix 7.0” (June 20, 6 PM EEST)

While you’re at it, feel free to explore Zabbix 7.0 LTS webinars and workshops in other languages. You can also check out worldwide events related to Zabbix 7.0 LTS, including our free in-person meetup in Riga on June 19 and Zabbix Summit 2024 this fall. 

Ready to upgrade or migrate?

With a brand-new version out, there’s never been a better time to take advantage of our upgrade or migration services. Let our team take the risk out of migrating or upgrading to 7.0, giving you the latest version at a lower cost and with minimal disruption to your organization.

Need a consultation about the latest version?

Not sure about how to get the most out of Zabbix 7.0? Our expert consultants can answer any questions related to the architecture of your infrastructure, the implementation of a back-up strategy, and your capacity planning, while providing strategic advice on which 7.0 services are right for you.

Make your contribution as a translator

The Documentation 7.0 translation project is now live, which means that you can help localize Zabbix 7.0 documentation in multiple languages. Your efforts will help make Zabbix accessible to users around the globe, and you’ll also receive a reward for your contributions. The guidelines, which contain essential information about the project, are available here.

Useful links

To see what else is in store for the future, have a look at the Zabbix roadmap.

You can find the instructions and download the new version on the Download page.

Detailed, step-by-step upgrade instructions are available on our Upgrade procedure page.

Learn about new features and changes introduced in Zabbix 7.0 LTS by visiting the What’s new in Zabbix 7.0 page.

The What’s new documentation section provides a detailed description of the new features.

Take a look at the release notes to see the full list of new features and improvements.

 

The post Zabbix 7.0 – Everything You Need to Know appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Making Life Easier for MSPs: The Zabbix Advantage

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/making-life-easier-for-msps-the-zabbix-advantage/28004/

Times have never been better for managed service providers (MSPs). The demand for remote monitoring services has skyrocketed as cloud adoption rises and working from home becomes the new standard. The number of organizations that trust MSPs with the everyday functioning of their mission-critical IT systems and processes has grown rapidly – nearly 9 out of 10 small and medium enterprises either use or plan to use MSPs to manage their infrastructure.

As a service provider, an MSP needs to be ahead of the curve at all times and adopt a constantly-shifting and evolving set of best practices for remote monitoring and management. At Zabbix, we’ve created the ultimate solution for full-stack IT monitoring, and we’ve built in features and benefits that are designed to make it as easy as possible for MSPs to provide top-quality monitoring to their clients as well. Keep reading to learn more about what makes Zabbix the ideal monitoring tool for any MSP.

There are no limits to what you can monitor with Zabbix

And when we say no limits, we mean no limits! Zabbix literally allows you to monitor anything from the frequency of a baby’s cries to the hydraulic systems on a space station. From hardware to software to middleware, VEP resources, virtual resources, and more, Zabbix is capable of monitoring millions of metrics.  As an MSP, you’re no doubt called upon to tackle anything from basic network and server monitoring to highly advanced cloud, container, and Kubernetes monitoring. Zabbix lets you keep it all under one roof and handle it with a single solution.

You can integrate Zabbix with any client’s systems

Today’s MSP needs to be able to seamlessly integrate their tools and processes with the IT frameworks and ITIL guidelines of their clients as well as their business goals, strategies, and best practices. Zabbix is designed to work with third party solutions and boasts a constantly-growing list of official integrations.

When you’re notified of a potential problem, you can easily forward your alerts to third-party ITSM, helpdesk, and messaging systems, enhance them with the additional information that Zabbix is able to collect, and freely customize the outgoing messages for different clients – just one of the areas where Zabbix stands out as an ideal multitenant solution.

Zabbix makes reporting and analysis simple

MSPs need to be able to quickly generate and share regular reports and analyses with clients, keeping them up to speed on the status, performance, and health of their infrastructure. Ideally, those reports should be clear, concise, and actionable, highlighting key metrics and insights via graphs, charts, and tables, identifying trends, and predicting potential issues. Done right, reporting can enhance service quality and position you as an ideal strategic partner.

When you make the decision to deploy Zabbix scheduled reports, you’ll get daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly overviews of the infrastructures and business services you’ve been tasked to monitor. You can also track the changes performed in your Zabbix instance with our robust and detailed built-in audit logging functionality, all of which is designed to make it as easy as possible for you to keep your clients in the loop.

Zabbix makes data easy to visualize

Much like the world around them, MSPs have become increasingly more data-driven. It’s easy to understand why – when you have critical information right in front of you, it’s easier to see trends you would have otherwise missed, which in turn helps you make better-informed decisions that can help guide you to success.

Zabbix dashboards are built to serve as visual storybooks for your business. They transform complex monitoring metrics into an engaging narrative, presenting intimidating data in an intuitive, insightful layout and making data interpretation simple.

You can customize dashboards, screens, and slideshows to easily track the status of a tenant’s infrastructure, applications, and business services. You can also leverage a wide range of dashboard widgets to aggregate, transform, and graph your data while also tracking your monitoring endpoints on geographical and network maps, identifying the status of the most critical alarms, and sorting your monitoring endpoints by resource usage.

Zabbix makes effective security management easier

When it comes to cyberattacks, MSPs are up against a constantly changing threat landscape, not to mention the challenges they face in protecting diverse, multitenant setups. With Zabbix, you can secure connections to and from your monitoring endpoints either with certificates or via pre-shared key encryption.

Multitenant MSPs can also control access to different Zabbix elements and features by creating unique Zabbix roles for your tenants while taking advantage of the native permission logic to isolate monitoring endpoints between tenants. Host groups and subgroups let you decide what your tenants can see, and encrypted agents help to secure all communication, including proxy-to-server communication.

You can also rely on encrypted communication between Zabbix components as well as flexible permissions, user authentication, and integrations with secret vaults for storing passwords and other sensitive information.

Zabbix is inherently scalable

There are no two ways about it – surviving as an MSP in today’s business environment means being able to scale. The number of customers that you support is likely to vary from year to year or even month to month. In order to add customers without compromising your level of service, you need to scale up. And if your customer base shrinks, you will probably need to decrease the size of your infrastructure and operations in order to avoid spending money on services that your business no longer needs.

By deploying Zabbix proxies and letting them collect and process data on behalf of the primary Zabbix server node, you can easily scale your Zabbix instance as your client base expands – no matter where those clients happen to be. And if you need to scale back your business for any reason, it’s a simple matter of deleting the unused proxies.

Zabbix is uniquely cost-efficient

A key benefit of Zabbix has always been that it’s open-source – there are no license fees associated with using our software, and you’re not locked into an endless, inflexible contract. Meanwhile, our extensive range of competitively-priced professional services are designed to fit the unique needs of MSPs and give you the most effective solutions as quickly as possible.

Perhaps most importantly for a multitenant MSP, Zabbix is built to run without the need for a lot of infrastructure or resources. With Zabbix, you can offer your clients more flexibility than comparable monitoring solutions while dramatically lowering the amount of hardware, CPU power, and costs involved.

Conclusion

In order to serve the constantly evolving needs of their clients, MSPs demand more flexibility and features than ever before – and this naturally extends to the monitoring solutions they choose. Rather than offer a few additional services to target MSPs, we’ve built our business with them in mind, which is why we offer a range of feature-rich technical support plans specifically for MSPs.

To learn more about what Zabbix can do for MSPs like yours, visit our website or request a demo.

The post Making Life Easier for MSPs: The Zabbix Advantage appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

What Makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux Special?

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/what-makes-a-zabbix-conference-benelux-special/27789/

Zabbix has always seen our mission as going beyond simply delivering a product. From the start, building a strong global community has created and supported a better business model, and an important part of building our community is our practice of taking our message to the places where our users, partners, and potential clients live and work.

That’s where Zabbix Conferences enter the picture. Since 2011, they’ve grown from yearly events on our home turf in Riga to multi-day extravaganzas in locations as far-flung as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Porto Alegre. There’s something about the conferences in the Benelux countries, however, that seems to boost our reach a little further and create a little more enthusiasm every time we visit.

“Zabbix Conference Benelux is a can’t-miss event for European Zabbix enthusiasts and professionals. It attracts Zabbix experts from the retail, IT, banking, and government sectors (just to name a few), and brings everyone together with a shared sense of purpose. It’s the perfect place to network with like-minded individuals and come away with plenty of inspiration for your own projects.”

– Alexei Vladishev, Zabbix Founder and CEO

There’s just something about Benelux

The politico-economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is a fascinating locale for any event – the three nations that make up the union each bring their own customs, history, language, and business culture to the mix, which creates an intriguing backdrop for any kind of business.

“A Zabbix Conference Benelux is a unique event because of the way the people of the region make their guests feel welcome and create an atmosphere of belonging, togetherness, and support.”

-Alexei Vladishev, Zabbix Founder and CEO

From our perspective at Zabbix, Benelux is home not only to a sizable community of existing clients and partners, but also an enormous pool of potential new ones. We’ve thought long and hard about what we can offer to that particular group when we make our (almost) annual pilgrimage to Benelux, so keep reading for some insight into what makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux not only special, but worth attending.

Learn from the best

Attending a Zabbix Conference Benelux is first and foremost an excellent opportunity to catch up with the very latest trends and developments in the world of IT monitoring, including Zabbix proxy high-availability and load balancing as well as automating Zabbix workflows with Zabbix API and zabbix_utils.

Our conference speakers represent a broad cross-section of industries and experiences, and they pride themselves on coming up with fresh, innovative topics – in fact, many of them share their use cases and results for the first time on our stage. What’s more, the energy and dynamics of our workshops and live Q&A sessions foster open dialogue, richer conversations, and greater innovation.

“The Zabbix Conference Benelux I attended in 2023 stands out to me because of a very informative speech by (Zabbix Trainer and Consultant at Opensource ICT Solutions) Brian Van Baekel about his experience with Zabbix in an MSP environment. On top of that, the conference was organized in the beautiful center of Antwerp, the atmosphere was very friendly as usual, and we had some fascinating events after the conference as well.” 

– Kaspars Mednis, Zabbix Chief Trainer 

Getting to know you

The world may be increasingly dominated by virtual interactions and digital connections, but there’s still something unique and special about face-to-face conferences. At Zabbix, our feeling has always been that in-person events are crucial to strengthening the bonds between our team members, our partners, and our users. A Zabbix Conference Benelux gives participants a chance to truly get in touch with the people behind our product, allowing for deeper understanding and stronger relationships, which are the foundation of all successful business collaborations.

“The year I attended (2023) I really enjoyed the overall spirit of the event, the atmosphere in Antwerp, and the opportunities to get to know the Zabbix community closer.” 

– Aleksandrs Petrovs-Gavrilovs, Zabbix Technical Support Engineer 

Drumming up new business

Attending a Zabbix Conference Benelux isn’t just about exchanging information, but also about providing attendees with opportunities for spontaneous conversations, chance encounters, and relationship-building that can lead to collaborations, partnerships, and future business opportunities for everyone involved.

Business leaders can learn about the technology and challenges of Zabbix and our partners and have a frank dialogue that helps them understand their own needs from a different perspective. And as anyone who has spent time at a Zabbix Conference Benelux can tell you, those kinds of free-flowing conversations tend to happen naturally and organically when both parties are in a friendly, welcoming environment that also happens to be just a bit outside of their home turf.

Networking and hospitality

Speaking of creating a welcoming environment, it’s impossible to underestimate how important quirky yet fun event venues and incredible hospitality are to creating an ideal event for learning and networking. Zabbix Technical Support Engineer Edgars Melveris is a veteran of Zabbix Conferences in 2020 (Utrecht, the Netherlands) and 2023 (Antwerp, Belgium). He says that it’s the combination of in-depth technical information, fascinating locales, and good times that makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux special to him.

“The National Military Museum in Utrecht really impressed me, and I also enjoyed the atmosphere and sense of community at the event venues. When it comes to conference content, (Zabbix Chief Trainer) Kaspars Mednis’ workshop on ‘New and improved SNMP bulk data collection in Zabbix 6.4’ has only become more relevant with the passage of time, and (Zabbix Trainer and Consultant at Opensource ICT Solutions) Nathan Liefting’s presentation on ‘Zabbix Native HA: Lessons Learned and Tips & Tricks’ was particularly useful to me in my role.”

-Edgars Melveris, Zabbix Technical Support Engineer

Zabbix Conference Benelux 2024 will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on May 24-25. To find out more information, register to attend, or sign up as a speaker, please visit the conference page. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon!

The post What Makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux Special? appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Discover A World of Opportunity at Zabbix Meetings

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/discover-a-world-of-opportunity-at-zabbix-meetings/27684/

From the very beginning, Zabbix has been fortunate to have a large, diverse, and truly global community. Engaging with them is the key to getting the most out of Zabbix, and to that end, we introduced Zabbix Meetings in late 2022.

Zabbix Meetings are global get-togethers in locations from Stockholm to Shanghai to Sao Paulo and all points in between. They were created to serve as the first step on the journey to working with Zabbix and getting to know us better, giving Zabbix beginners a chance to learn about our capabilities directly from our team and our partners.

They’re also an opportunity for more experienced Zabbix users to learn from others, share their knowledge, and stay up to date on the latest developments in the Zabbix ecosystem – all in one event.

Whether you’re new to Zabbix or an experienced professional, we’re confident that attending a Zabbix Meeting will help you solve problems, exchange ideas, and grow your Zabbix expertise. Accordingly, here are 4 key benefits you can expect from showing up at a Zabbix Meeting near you.

Build relationships with our team members

Businesses are built on relationships, and ours is no exception. We still believe that there’s no substitute for meeting in person when it comes to building a strong culture, developing rapport with our users and partners, and connecting on a deeper level.

Attending Zabbix Meetings and getting to know our team is a great way to build trust and put some faces to names, which will allow you to know who exactly on our team you can reach out to when you’re shopping around for the best deals on support packages, when you need assistance, or when you want to collaborate on a cool new feature or project that can be a game-changer for your business.

Hear use cases that apply to your own organization

If you’re thinking about adopting Zabbix or expanding your existing Zabbix setup, it can be invaluable to learn how other companies similar to yours have tried and succeeded with it. Our use cases come from actual satisfied Zabbix users and highlight the effectiveness of a specific feature or benefit, while sharing notable results.

They’re also ideal for providing best practices that you can apply to your own industry. We can just about guarantee that no matter what you’re trying to do with Zabbix, a similar organization has already succeeded at it and would be glad to show you how they pulled it off. What’s more, seeing Zabbix-related use cases presented can also help you sell the benefits of Zabbix to stakeholders in your organization, gain buy-in, and present the implementation process.

Get direct, real-time answers to your questions

Taking part in a Zabbix Meeting is an excellent way to grow your professional network and make new business connections – we’ve created them to be the perfect place to meet a variety of like-minded industry professionals. That said, simply attending a Zabbix Meeting isn’t a recipe for success – if you’re not asking questions, you’re definitely not getting the full experience.

Asking good questions at Zabbix Meetings can help you gain valuable information and make the most of your time and the opportunity. The presentations and use cases that are the backbone of any Zabbix Meeting are detailed, in-depth, and full of technical details, so we always offer an extended Q&A session at the end of each one to make sure you walk away from the Meeting with a full understanding of all the information presented.

Learn more about what Zabbix can do for you

If you’re signing up to attend a Zabbix Meeting near you, there’s a good chance that you already know a fair amount about Zabbix and what we do. There are plenty of ways to find out the basics, including visiting our website, checking out our latest blog posts, or having a look at our famous forums.

No matter how much time you spend reading up on us, however, some information is bound to slip through the cracks. You might know about our technical support offers, but there’s no substitute for chatting with one of our support engineers about how you use Zabbix and hearing their opinion about what type of support plan best suits your specific needs.

You might also know that we offer training sessions, but that’s not the same as hearing from one of our certified trainers exactly how a Zabbix Certified training session has upskilled employees at a company just like yours and helped them save money, reduce downtime, and do things with Zabbix that they never imagined possible.

Conclusion

There’s simply no substitute for a Zabbix Meeting when it comes to learning more about what we can do for you. Have a look at our Events page to see when we’ll be in a location near you and be sure to sign up – we’re looking forward to seeing you soon!

The post Discover A World of Opportunity at Zabbix Meetings appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Keeping Remote Teams Connected: The Zabbix Advantage

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/keeping-remote-teams-connected-the-zabbix-advantage/27551/

The popularity of remote teams may have exploded in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s not a phenomenon that’s likely to trend downward anytime soon. High-profile organizations like 3M, Dropbox, Shopify, and LinkedIn are continuing to enthusiastically embrace remote working, essentially making it the “default setting” for their employees.

The shift toward remote working is not without its challenges, however. Organizations of all sizes often have little time to set up the kind of networking infrastructure and efficient processes that make sure remote workers are just as connected and productive as their on-site counterparts. In this article, we’ll take a quick look at some of the most important network monitoring challenges that remote teams face and show how Zabbix can help you tackle them as efficiently as possible.

Infrastructure and connectivity issues

A remote network is essentially a grouping of multiple smaller network setups, each with their own set of variables that can affect performance. The differences between network system and infrastructure quality at different remote destinations can often lead to low overall network performance, which in turn makes it a challenge to provide the kind of high-speed communication needed to run the remote automation tools and software applications used by remote employees and teams.

By providing straightforward and easy-to-understand visibility into a network’s connected devices and how data moves between them, Zabbix makes it easy to automatically compare data and identify any drop in network performance.

With Zabbix, you can easily keep an eye on network routers and switches, especially internet provider and uplink ports up/down. You can also monitor network latency, the error rate on ports, the packet loss to important devices, and network utilization on important ports with net.if.in/net.if.out. Here are some example triggers:

High Network Utilization: avg(/Router ABC/net.if.in[eth0],5m)>80MB
High Packet Loss: avg(/Router ABC/icmppingloss,5m)>5
High Latency: avg(/Router ABC/icmppingsec,5m)>0.1

What’s more, Zabbix allows you to create network maps with important network devices and real-time data, as well as dashboards with maps and single item/gauge widgets, all of which makes it far easier to achieve the uninterrupted connectivity that remote teams depend on.

Staying safe

Remote locations aren’t islands that can be completely isolated from external traffic. Staying vigilant and doing everything possible to eliminate data breaches is important, and taking advantage of strong encryption methods, network scanning tools, and firewalls to protect your systems is a good start. However, using a whole suite of tools to protect security can add more difficulty when it comes to integrating and monitoring them.

With Zabbix, you can count on enterprise-grade security, including encrypted communication between components, a flexible user permission schema that can be easily applied to a distributed environment, and custom user roles with a granular set of permissions for different types of users.

Zabbix also provides native support for HTTP, LDAP, and SAML authentication (which gives you an additional layer of security and improves your user experience while working with Zabbix), the ability to restrict access to sensitive information by limiting which metrics can be collected in your environment, and the ability to track changes in your environment by utilizing the Audit log. It’s all designed to make sure that there are no compromises on the security of your data when you decide to go remote.

Scalability

As a remote organization grows and its distributed systems expand, a good monitoring solution needs to be able to grow along with it in order to prevent gaps in coverage while maintaining performance and reliability. Zabbix gives you limitless scalability in the form of Zabbix proxies, which act as independent intermediaries that collect performance and availability data on behalf of a Zabbix server. You can roll out new proxies as fast as you need them, and because Zabbix is free and open source, you don’t have to worry about additional licensing costs.

Zabbix proxies allow you to see at a glance what resources are being used on your network at any given moment, which is especially handy if, like most remote teams, you have tens or even hundreds of servers and network appliances to monitor. You can also execute remote commands in remote locations – either on the proxies themselves or on the agents monitored by the proxy, and multiple frontends can be deployed for load balancing as well as for improved security and connectivity. Proxy docker containers and cloud options are available as well, enhancing flexibility and making Zabbix ideal for any organization that spans the globe (or aspires to).

Managing multiple solutions

The legacy software and systems you use were most likely designed to work in a traditional networking model. Remote working, as we’ve seen, presents a whole new range of challenges when it comes to compatibility and support.

We’ve created Zabbix to be as easy as possible to integrate with existing systems. You can easily monitor any operating system, cloud service, IP telephony service, docker container, or web server/database backend. We provide out-of-the-box monitoring for the world’s leading hardware and software vendors, and our extensively documented API makes it easy to create workflows and integrate with other systems. In addition, you can also integrate Zabbix with the most popular helpdesk, messaging, and ITSM systems, such as Slack, Jira, MS Teams, and many others.

Not only that, Zabbix is designed to serve as the ideal monitoring solution for multi-tenant environments. It serves as a single pane of glass for your entire infrastructure, and it’s easy to visualize everything that’s happening with your network with unique maps, dashboards, and templates.

Conclusion

The days of large teams all working together under the same roof are a thing of the past – the remote working trend will only accelerate as technology improves and employees get more accustomed to working with colleagues across multiple locations. That’s why it’s of paramount importance to make sure your monitoring solution has the built-in flexibility and scalability to grow with your team and your business.

If you want to see for yourself how Zabbix can help you effectively monitor a globally distributed network, contact us.

 

 

The post Keeping Remote Teams Connected: The Zabbix Advantage appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

The Zabbix/HackerOne Bug Bounty Program: A Year of Results

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/the-zabbix-hackerone-bug-bounty-program-a-year-of-results/27490/

As cyberattacks increase exponentially and the cost of maintaining dedicated internal security teams skyrockets, the popularity of the “bug bounty” program (which sees outside hackers paid by organizations to legally expose cybersecurity vulnerabilities) is exploding.

Organizations large and small are running programs to root out the security vulnerabilities in their products. Governments and policymakers are changing laws to make the approach easier to adopt, while private sector tech giants are also offering generous rewards – Apple alone has reportedly paid out more than $20 million via its bounty program, and the vendor offers up to $2 million to any hacker who reports a vulnerability that bypasses the protections of Lockdown Mode on its devices.

It’s an approach that dovetails perfectly with the Zabbix philosophy of “security first,” and it’s why as 2023 dawned we began working with HackerOne, the world leader in attack resistance management (ARM). ARM blends the security expertise of ethical hackers with asset discovery, continuous assessment, and process enhancement to find and close gaps in the digital attack surface.

Why HackerOne?

We knew from the start that we wanted to create a Zabbix-specific bug bounty program that would challenge the world’s best ethical hackers to find the weak spots in our cybersecurity armor – and let us know about them in time to fix them.

One of the biggest advantages of the HackerOne platform is the broad and diverse community of experts that they can call on. Adding Zabbix to HackerOne’s platform was a golden opportunity to test our security and vulnerabilities on a scale that we’d previously been unable to even imagine.

In contrast to an individual penetration test, which is the “old-school” industry standard security measure and is performed based on a pre-prepared scenario, we knew that HackerOne’s experts could discover vulnerabilities that a run-of-the-mill penetration test would never find.

At the same time, we knew that adding Zabbix to HackerOne was a bold decision that would test our faith in the security of our product. Put simply, teaming up with HackerOne was our way of confirming the quality of Zabbix and our desire to constantly improve it.

Getting started

We’ve known for a long time that HackerOne was the ideal partner for a bug bounty program, given their reputation for innovation and effectiveness. After an initial approach and agreement between HackerOne and Zabbix, it was time to consider what exactly a Zabbix bug bounty program would look like.

It was clear to everyone involved that if the reporting of vulnerabilities was to be meaningful and structured, we needed to develop new workflows that would provide a procedure for processing the received applications and handing them over for development. Another critical step was to register for the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) database, where all vulnerabilities discovered in Zabbix are currently registered.

The results

We’re pleased to report that as with any successful implementation, the numbers speak for themselves:

Data for the period 01.01.2023 – 25.01.2024

Submissions

• Reports submitted: 250
• Reports triaged: 3
• Reports closed as resolved: 16
• Reports rewarded: 19

Rewards

• Total rewards: $17,300.00
• Average reward: $865.00
• Median reward: $500.00

Submissions by severity

• Critical: 29
• High: 65
• Medium, low, none: 108
• Not severe: 48

We were pleasantly surprised at the sheer number of submissions alone – not all 250 submissions were severe or even actionable, but the number shows that our community is taking to the program, spreading the word, and doing their part to help us make sure that Zabbix is as secure as we can possibly make it. The fact that we were able to “squash” several bugs that will now never get a chance to bedevil our users is just the icing on the cake.

The results are impressive, but in keeping with the Zabbix ethos of continuous improvement, we’re confident that with a few refinements we can pay out even more in 2024. After all, any money that goes toward building a better, more secure product is money well spent! We’d like to close by extending a special and heartfelt thank you to everyone who has contributed to our bug bounty program and discovered vulnerabilities – keep up the great work!

 

The post The Zabbix/HackerOne Bug Bounty Program: A Year of Results appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

5 Common Network Monitoring Mistakes (And How Zabbix Can Help You Avoid Them)

Post Syndicated from Michael Kammer original https://blog.zabbix.com/5-common-network-monitoring-mistakes-and-how-zabbix-can-help-you-avoid-them/27394/

Being the world’s most trusted open-source monitoring solution means that businesses of every size and description turn to us for their network monitoring needs. This gives us an inside look at how easy it is for them to suffer disruptive network failures, which usually happen thanks to relatively simple miscalculations.

Network monitoring mistakes are easy to make but often challenging and time-consuming to fix, so we’ve put together a list of five of the most common mistakes that we see users make. We’ve also shown how Zabbix’s built-in features can help prevent them when combined with our experience and expertise.

Network monitoring mistake 1: Playing defense with security threats

As technology evolves, security threats grow and mutate much faster than before. A cybersecurity team that takes a purely reactive approach to the latest round of digital threats will constantly be playing catch-up, unable to challenge network vulnerabilities and putting their entire network at risk.

Zabbix is designed to help enterprises go beyond the traditional network monitoring strategy of reacting to performance and security problems as they occur. Zabbix can, for example, trace failed logins (which are often possible hacking attempts) as well as unexpected successful logins.

If an anomaly is discovered, Zabbix uses multiple messaging channels to notify the responsible individuals in your organization about the different kinds of events occurring in your environment This allows you to discover potential threats before they happen and react to them before they become a problem.

Network monitoring mistake 2: Getting left behind when technology evolves

Networking technologies continually evolve, so monitoring technologies need to evolve with them, offering even better visibility. By failing to make use of new monitoring technologies as they’re released, companies leave themselves wide open to network problems. Employees get comfortable with tools and solutions and are often reluctant to change or upgrade, but not doing so puts your network at risk.

At Zabbix, we offer our users a quality product and a variety of support options. Every six months we release a new stable version, and each new Zabbix software release is subject to a standard life cycle and expiry date. Our life cycle specifics also help make content for all new version releases more predictable and manageable.

If you’re already using Zabbix (and we hope that you are), taking advantage of our upgrade solution is the perfect way to make sure you don’t fall behind the curve when it comes to monitoring technology. We work side by side with your team and adapt to your environment so that your upgrade gets taken care of with no disruption and in line with our best practices.

Network monitoring mistake 3: Not having the right performance data and insights

Every enterprise or business will have different network performance requirements, which in turn will require examining different performance metrics and having different performance expectations and baselines. The key is being able to separate the signal (useful performance data and insights) from the noise (everything else) so that you can properly judge your network’s behavior and take appropriate action.

Zabbix’s web UI provides multiple ways of presenting a visual overview of your IT environment. Widget-based multi-page dashboards display information in an easy-to-digest format, so even laymen can see what’s happening with the network at a glance.

Flexible graphs can display regular and aggregate data, and all display options allow you to filter and display only the data you need, at any level of granularity you may require. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to prioritize useful insights over all others.

Network monitoring mistake 4: Ignoring network logs

Modern networking devices generate logs that contain vital information. Network management teams can use this information to provide higher security, improved efficiency, and less downtime. Not collecting and using these logs is ignoring free information that you could use to run your network better.

Zabbix makes log monitoring easy by allowing you to collect, filter, and analyze log entries. Monitoring firewall logs with Zabbix, for example, allows you to identify things like unusual traffic patterns, blocked connections, and denied access logs. With more advanced or “smart” firewalls, you can read logs and create intrusion alerts in Zabbix.

When it comes to Windows logs, you can track the success or failure of user logins and monitor IP addresses to see whether login attempts are coming from a trusted network or not. VPN connections (source IP, multiple failed connection attempts, etc.) are also a snap to monitor with Zabbix. It’s all part of our “single pane of glass” philosophy that allows SNMP traps, logs, and other sources to all be monitored with a single tool.

Network monitoring mistake 5: Failing to plan for network growth

Simply focusing on how your network is performing now doesn’t cut it – you also need to prepare yourself for what your network might become. Any planned changes to your network need to be considered when planning out your monitoring strategies. That means projecting what the state of your network will be and considering how additions to your network might affect performance.

Zabbix is designed to be scalable to any infrastructure – our customers use it to monitor anything from smart homes to multi-tenant global business environments. And when it’s time to expand your network, you can gain an extra layer of scalability by deploying Zabbix Proxies, which allow you to collect millions of metrics from hundreds of thousands of devices, services, and applications.

Conclusion

Monitoring a modern network is a challenging task, and Murphy’s Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time) is never far from the mind of any network management professional. However, in our experience, network management teams can avoid the most common network monitoring mistakes by following the advice we’ve outlined in this post.

If you want to see for yourself how Zabbix can help you monitor your network as efficiently as possible and avoid common network monitoring mistakes, get in touch with us.

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