Tag Archives: community

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.

How a Custom Zabbix Solution Maximized Efficiency for an MSP

Post Syndicated from Kristy Slimmer original https://blog.zabbix.com/how-a-custom-zabbix-solution-maximized-efficiency-for-an-msp/28810/

Discover how our partners at ATS Group designed and implemented a custom Zabbix solution that allowed a large managed service provider (MSP) to monitor and manage a vast array of client devices across multiple data centers.

The Challenge: Addressing Infrastructure Monitoring Complexities

When a federal government contractor specializing in IT managed services secured a contract to manage the infrastructure for a large federal agency, they faced a daunting challenge: how to effectively monitor and manage the vast array of devices under their purview using a single, comprehensive solution.

Real-time monitoring and immediate alerts for any issues were non-negotiable requirements. The sheer scale and complexity of the infrastructure demanded a robust monitoring system capable of providing insights across multiple data centers and diverse technologies.

The MSP, aware of the need for a trusted and experienced partner, turned to ATS Group to tackle the complexities of its observability and management challenge.

The Solution: Architecting a Custom Zabbix Solution

ATS Group, North America’s exclusive Zabbix Premium Partner, brings over two decades of experience in monitoring and optimizing enterprise IT environments. ATS Group architected and implemented a custom solution that leveraged Zabbix’s flexibility and scalability, demonstrating their deep knowledge of the technology and ability to handle complex challenges.

The ATS team deployed an on-premise Zabbix Server, accompanied by Zabbix Proxy Servers placed in each data center. This distributed architecture was a key factor in ensuring seamless monitoring across geographically dispersed environments while minimizing latency, a critical factor in managing such a vast infrastructure.

Custom Zabbix Solutions delivered by the ATS Group

From there, ATS implemented various Zabbix customizations that were integral to meeting the agency’s unique and diverse infrastructure needs, including developing templates and integrations.

Templates. ATS developed numerous templates covering a broad spectrum of technologies (including OpenShift, VMware, Dell, HP, Cisco UCS, Hitachi, NetApp, Pure, Brocade, Commvault, Linux, and Windows) to provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities tailored to the specifics of each component, ensuring a detailed view of the entire infrastructure stack.

Integrations. ATS built customized integrations for several third-party products. An integration with OpenShift allowed for alerts configured within OpenShift to be directly ingested and processed by Zabbix. The integration with VMware allowed Zabbix to detect when an administrator put a host in maintenance in VMware, automatically creating a maintenance period for that host within Zabbix to eliminate unwanted alerts while the host was being serviced.

Finally, integrations with ServiceNow and Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) enabled streamlined incident management workflows, ensuring that issues were promptly detected, triaged, and addressed with minimal manual intervention – and the proper stakeholders were notified within the customer and service provider organizations.

Trigger Actions. ATS implemented custom trigger actions to automate responses to predefined events. Whether restarting a service upon failure or executing remediation scripts, these trigger actions helped maintain system stability, minimize downtime, and reduce the workload (and callouts in the middle of the night!) for system administrators.

Dashboards. ATS designed custom dashboards to provide stakeholders with intuitive, real-time insights into the infrastructure’s health and performance. These dashboards served as a centralized hub, offering a comprehensive view of the entire environment with actionable insights to drive informed decision-making.

The Results

A custom Zabbix solution delivers visibility, streamlined monitoring, proactive management, and enhanced client satisfaction. The impact of the custom Zabbix solution was immediate and profound. By leveraging the power of Zabbix and the expert skill of the ATS team, the MSP gained unprecedented visibility and control over their client’s sprawling infrastructure. The benefits included:

Greater Operational Efficiency. With a unified view of the entire infrastructure and real-time alerts for any issues, our client experienced a significant improvement in operational efficiency. Proactive management and automated responses minimized downtime, allowing resources to be allocated more strategically.

Faster Incident Response. Issues were detected instantaneously, and relevant stakeholders were promptly alerted, enabling swift resolution and minimizing the impact on operations. This streamlined incident response mechanism reduced mean time to resolution (MTTR) and enhanced overall system reliability.

Increased Revenue. Delighted by the efficiency and effectiveness of our client’s management and monitoring capabilities, the end-user federal agency recognized the value of their partnership and expanded the scope of the contract.

This testament to our client’s success underscores the transformative impact of our solution, paving the way for further collaboration and growth opportunities. As a result, ATS Group and the managed services provider continue to expand their partnership and are solving complex infrastructure problems for numerous additional clients.

The post How a Custom Zabbix Solution Maximized Efficiency for an MSP 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.

The post Zabbix for MSPs with Andre Morton appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

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.

Celebrating the community: Isabel

Post Syndicated from Sophie Ashford original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/celebrating-the-community-isabel/

One of our favourite things is sharing the stories of amazing young people, volunteers, and educators who are using their passion for technology to create positive change in the world around them.

Recently, we had the pleasure of speaking with Isabel, a computer science teacher at Barton Peveril Sixth Form College in Eastleigh, England. She told us her fascinating journey from industry to education, along with how she is helping to make the tech space inviting to all.

From industry to the classroom: Isabel’s journey to encourage diversity in tech

Isabel’s path to working in the tech sector started with her early exposure to engineering thanks to her father’s career in telecoms.

“I find this is true for a lot of female engineers my age: you will find that their dad or their uncle was an engineer. I remember that when I made the decision to study engineering, my teachers asked me if I was sure that it was something I wanted to do.”

Isabel pursued a degree in engineering because she loved the technical aspects, and during her studies she found a passion for programming. She went to work as a software engineer in Hampshire, contributing to the development of 3G mobile phone technology.

Despite enjoying her career in tech, Isabel felt a strong pull towards teaching due to her long-standing involvement with youth groups and a desire to give back to the community.

“While I was at university in London, I took part in a scheme where we could go into local primary schools and help with their science teaching. At the time, I just thought this was my way of giving back, I hadn’t really thought of it as a career. But actually, after a while, I thought ‘I’m enjoying this programming, but I really liked helping the young kids as well’.”

The transition wasn’t easy, as Computer Science was not widely taught in schools at the time, but Isabel persevered, teaching IT and Media to her classes as well.

Once Isabel settled into her teaching role, she began thinking about how she could tackle a problem she noticed in the STEM field.

Championing diversity in tech

Having experienced first-hand what it was like to be the only woman in STEM spaces, Isabel’s commitment to diversity in technology is at the core of her teaching philosophy. She works hard to create an inclusive environment and a diversity of opportunities in her classroom, making sure girls feel encouraged to pursue careers in tech through exploring various enrichment activities.

Two educators at a desk using their computers.

Isabel focuses on enrichment activities that bridge the gap between academic learning and real-world application. She runs various projects and competitions, ensuring a balanced representation of girls in these initiatives, and gives her students the opportunity to participate in programs like the Industrial Cadets, Student Robotics, and Coolest Projects. 

Isabel told us that she feels these opportunities provide essential soft skills that are crucial for success in any career.

“The A level environment is so academic; it is heavily focused on working on your own on very abstract topics. Having worked in industry and knowing the need to collaborate, I found that really hard. So I’ve always made sure to do lots of projects with my students where we actually work with real engineers, do real-world projects. I believe strongly in teaching soft skills like team working, project management, and time management.”

Harnessing trusted resources

A key resource in Isabel’s teaching toolkit is the Ada Computer Science platform. She values its reliability and the timely updates to the topics, which are crucial in a rapidly evolving subject like Computer Science.

She said she encourages both her students and fellow teachers, especially those who have retrained in Computer Science, to use the platform as a resource. 

“Ada Computer Science is amazing. We know we can rely on saying to the students ‘look on Ada, the information will be correct’ because I trust the people creating the resources. And we even found ourselves as teachers double-checking things on there. We struggle to get Computer science teachers, so actually only two of us are Computer Science teachers, and the other three are Maths teachers we have trained up. To be able to say ‘if you are not sure about something, look on Ada’ is a really nice thing to have.”

A large group of educators at a workshop.

The ongoing challenge and hope for the future

Despite her efforts, Isabel acknowledges that progress in getting more girls to pursue tech careers is slow. Many girls still view tech as an uninviting space and feel like they don’t belong when they find themselves as one of a few girls — if not the only one — in a class. But Isabel remains hopeful that continuous exposure and positive experiences can change these perceptions.

“I talk to students who are often the only girl in the class and they find that really hard. So, if at GCSE they are the only girl in the class, they won’t do [the subject] at A level. So, if we leave it until A level, it is almost too late. Because of this, I try as much as I can to get as many girls as possible onto my engineering enrichment projects to show them as many opportunities in engineering as possible early on.”

Her work with organisations like the UK Electronics Skills Foundation reflects her commitment to raising awareness about careers in electronics and engineering. Through her outreach and enrichment projects, Isabel educates younger students about the opportunities in these fields, hoping to inspire more girls to consider them as viable career paths.

Looking ahead

As new technology continues to be built, Isabel recognises the challenges in keeping up with rapid changes, especially with fields like artificial intelligence (AI). She stays updated through continuous learning and collaborating with her peers, and encourages her students to be adaptable and open to new developments. “The world of AI is both exciting and daunting,” she admits. “We need to prepare our students for a future that we can hardly predict.”

Isabel’s dedication to teaching, her advocacy for diversity, and her efforts to provide real-world learning opportunities make her an inspiring educator. Her commitment was recognised by the Era Foundation in 2023: Isabel was named as one of their David Clark Prize recipients. The award recognises those who “have gone above and beyond the curriculum to inspire students and showcase real-world engineering in the classroom”.

A woman receives a certificate of recognition.

Isabel not only imparts technical knowledge — she inspires her students to believe in their potential, encouraging a new generation of diverse tech professionals. 

If Isabel’s story has inspired you to encourage the next generation of young tech creators, check out the free teaching and training resources we provide to support your journey.

If you are working in Computer Science teaching for learners age 14 and up, take a look at how Ada Computer Science will support you. 

The post Celebrating the community: Isabel appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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.

Elevating Code Quality: Real-Time Insights with Zabbix Integration and SonarQube

Post Syndicated from Benyamine Elmahir original https://blog.zabbix.com/elevating-code-quality-real-time-insights-with-zabbix-and-sonarqube/28452/

The objective of this project was to establish a robust and integrated environment for the continuous monitoring of code quality and performance metrics. To achieve this, SonarQube, an open-source platform for the continuous inspection of code quality, was installed on AlmaLinux. Following its setup, SonarQube was seamlessly integrated with Zabbix, an enterprise-class open-source distributed monitoring solution, to enable the dynamic monitoring of various projects. This integration aimed to provide our team at Zen Networks with real-time visibility into key metrics such as bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells for ongoing projects.

Installing SonarQube on AlmaLinux

1. Pre-installation Requirements:
  • We conducted a detailed review to ensure that the server met the minimum hardware requirements for running SonarQube effectively.
  • Necessary dependencies, including Java Development Kit (JDK) and a supported database system, were installed and configured.
2. SonarQube Installation Steps:
  • The SonarQube server was downloaded from the official website.
  • Following best practices, a dedicated SonarQube user account was created for running the service.
  • The SonarQube service was configured to start on boot, ensuring high availability.
3. Configuration:
  • The sonar.properties file was meticulously edited to connect SonarQube to the chosen database, optimizing for performance and security.
  • Network settings were adjusted to allow SonarQube to run on the desired port (9000) and be accessible from the developer’s workstations.
  • Additional plugins were installed to extend the functionality of SonarQube and to support the languages used in our projects.

Project Setup in SonarQube

Upon successful installation and configuration of SonarQube on the AlmaLinux server, the next phase involved setting up projects for code analysis. Five test projects were created to demonstrate the capabilities of SonarQube and serve as a baseline for quality assessment.

Creation of Test Projects:
  • We created a series of five distinct projects, namely app-java, backup-code, erp-app, test-app, and web-app, each configured within SonarQube.
  • The projects were configured to assess various aspects of code quality, including reliability, security, and maintainability.
  • We enabled the automated scanning of code to identify bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells within each project.
Analysis and Metrics:
  • Each project underwent a thorough analysis, with results indicating varying levels of bugs and vulnerabilities alongside code smells.
  • Metrics such as coverage and duplication were configured to be monitored, though the initial test runs reflected 0.0% coverage, indicating a scope for further CI/CD integration.
  • The test-app project notably showed a substantial number of bugs and a significant code smell count, highlighting areas for immediate improvement.
Quality Gate Status:
  • All projects were set against predefined quality gates to ensure they met the organization’s standards for code quality.
  • Despite some projects having bugs and code smells, all projects passed the quality gates, suggesting that non-critical issues were identified, which would be addressed in an ongoing manner.

Integration with Zabbix

The integration of SonarQube with Zabbix was aimed at leveraging Zabbix’s robust monitoring capabilities to keep a close eye on the projects’ health status in terms of code quality.

Zabbix Template Creation:

Our team built a Zabbix template dedicated to interfacing with the SonarQube API and designed to auto-discover SonarQube projects and their key metrics. For integrating Zabbix with the SonarQube API and enabling the auto-discovery of projects and key metrics, the following API calls and configurations were used:

Authentication:
    • Example API call to authenticate:
    • curl -u token: “http://sonarqube_ip/api/authentication/validate”
Project Discovery:
    • Example API call to list projects:
    • curl -u token: “http://sonarqube_ip/api/projects/search”
Metrics Retrieval:
    • Example API call to get project metrics:
    • curl -u token: “http://sonarqube_ip/api/measures/component?component=project_key&metricKeys=bugs,vulnerabilities,code_smells”
Zabbix Template Configuration:
    • A customized Zabbix template was created to interface with the SonarQube API. The template includes discovery rules, item prototypes, and preprocessing steps to extract relevant metrics.
    • Example of a discovery rule and item prototype in the Zabbix template:
<discovery_rule>
<name>sonarqube_project_discovery</name>
<type>HTTP_AGENT</type>
<key>sonarqube.project.discovery</key>
<delay>1h</delay>
<lifetime>3d</lifetime>
<item_prototypes>
<item_prototype>
<name>{#PROJECTNAME}: Metrics</name>
<type>HTTP_AGENT</type>
<key>sonarqube.project.metrics['{#PROJECTNAME}']</key>
<delay>5m</delay>
<url>{$PROTO}://{HOST.IP}:{$PORT}/api/measures/component?
component={#PROJECTNAME}&metricKeys=bugs,vulnerabilities,
code_smells,ncloc,complexity,violations</url>
<headers>
<header>
<name>Authorization</name>
<value>Basic YOUR_BASE64_ENCODED_TOKEN</value>
</header>
</headers>
</item_prototype>
</item_prototypes>
</discovery_rule>

In addition, our team set up items within Zabbix to track the number of bugs, vulnerabilities, and code smells, as presented in the SonarQube dashboard. We also configured triggers within Zabbix to alert the team when certain thresholds were reached, facilitating prompt action to maintain code quality.

Automation and Dynamic Monitoring:

We enabled the dynamic discovery of projects in SonarQube, allowing for new projects to be automatically detected and monitored without manual intervention. To enable the dynamic discovery of projects in SonarQube and ensure they are automatically detected and monitored by Zabbix, we implemented the following configurations:

  • SonarQube Configuration:
    • Webhooks: Configured SonarQube webhooks to notify Zabbix whenever a new project is created or updated.
    • Project Tags: Used consistent tagging for SonarQube projects to facilitate easy identification in Zabbix.
  • Zabbix Configuration:
    • Discovery Rules: Created discovery rules in Zabbix that periodically query the SonarQube API to check for new projects.
    • Low-Level Discovery (LLD): Implemented LLD in Zabbix to automate the creation of items, triggers, and graphs for each new SonarQube project.
    • We also established a data flow between SonarQube and Zabbix, ensuring that updates in the code quality metrics were reflected in real time on the Zabbix dashboard.
Validation and Testing:
      • We conducted a series of tests to ensure that the integration was functioning correctly.
      • Our team verified that metrics reported in SonarQube matched those displayed in Zabbix, confirming the accuracy and reliability of the monitoring setup.

With the projects and metrics being actively monitored, the focus shifted to presenting the data effectively. A custom dashboard was created in Zabbix to aggregate and display the information gleaned from SonarQube.

Design and Layout:

We created a user-friendly dashboard to provide a quick overview of the status of all projects.

  • The dashboard was organized to show metrics such as the number of bugs, vulnerabilities, code smells, and the Quality Gate status of each project at a glance.
  • Particular attention was paid to visual hierarchy and layout, ensuring that the most critical metrics were immediately visible.

Custom Widgets and Visualizations:

Widgets were customized for each key metric to enhance readability and instant understanding of the project statuses.
Visual indicators, such as color-coded status icons and progress bars, were incorporated to give a clear visual cue about the health of each project.

Real-time Data Representation:

W configured the dashboard to refresh at regular intervals, providing real-time updates to the development team.
Ensured that the most current data was always available, enabling a proactive approach to quality assurance and code health.

Results and Benefits

The integration of SonarQube with Zabbix and the creation of a dedicated dashboard yielded significant benefits for development workflow and project management.

Improved Code Quality Monitoring:
  • The real-time monitoring of code quality metrics allowed for quicker identification and resolution of issues.
  • Developers received immediate feedback on the quality of their code, fostering a culture of quality-first in the development process.
Enhanced Visibility:
  • The Zabbix dashboard provided a centralized view of the health status of all projects, enhancing visibility for both developers and management.
  • Critical issues could be identified at a glance, allowing for prioritization and resource allocation to address the most pressing problems.
Streamlined Workflow:
  • Automated project discovery and monitoring reduced manual overhead, allowing developers to focus on coding rather than reporting.
  • Alerts and notifications from Zabbix ensured that no critical issues went unnoticed.
Decision-making Support:
  • The collected data and trends visible on the dashboard supported informed decision-making regarding code quality improvements and technical debt management.
  • The ability to track historical data enabled the team to measure the impact of implemented changes over time.
Proactive Issue Management:
  • The early detection of bugs and vulnerabilities allowed the team to address issues before they escalated, reducing potential risks to project timelines and quality.
  • The Quality Gate statuses helped maintain a consistent standard of code quality across all projects.

Special thanks to the team at Zen Networks (Oumaima Naami, Karim Chadil, and Fayçal Noushi) for their work on this project.

 

The post Elevating Code Quality: Real-Time Insights with Zabbix Integration and SonarQube appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Monitoring Self-Service Markets with Zabbix and IoT

Post Syndicated from Aurea Araujo original https://blog.zabbix.com/monitoring-self-service-markets-with-zabbix-and-iot/28422/

QU!CK Scan & Go, a startup specializing in self-service markets, required a monitoring system that could allow a comprehensive view of operations. Read on to see how Zabbix provided them with a solution that positively impacted their operations as well as their finances.

The convenience of having access to an establishment supplying staple foods around the clock is the motivating factor behind the rise of QU!CK Scan & Go. Since 2021, QU!CK Scan & Go has been developing self-service mini market systems, available in residential complexes and corporate buildings.

Available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the technology developed by QU!CK Scan & Go allows markets to be open at all times, with 100% self-service. Customers select the products they want, confirm the price by scanning a barcode, and complete the purchase in their own app with a credit card or virtual wallet.

QU!CK Scan & Go was the first company in the self-service market segment to operate in Argentina. As of this writing, they have 25 self-service stores located in Argentina and 2 in the United States.

The challenge

With the rapid growth in their business, QU!CK Scan & Go needed to be able to easily visualize operations in order to handle environmental issues and avoid product loss due to external factors. In the event of a power outage, for instance, refrigerators and freezers will fail to function, a problem that may take considerable time and effort to fix.

This scenario  isn’t an abstract hypothetical – power outages are a recurring issue in Argentina. In 2021 and 2022, the average length of a power outage was 5 hours. For freezers storing products such as ice cream, frozen processed foods, and other perishable items, that’s more than enough time for the products to thaw and become unusable, resulting in severe financial losses.

The solution

QU!CK Scan & Go’s search for a solution led them to Zabbix by way of CTL Information Technology, a Zabbix Certified Partner in Argentina.  Juan Guido Camaño, CEO of CTL, immediately grasped the fact that Zabbix provided the perfect solution for what QU!CK Scan & Go needed to monitor.

“Zabbix was our first, second and third choice, due to our extensive experience with the tool. We did not believe that there would be any better alternative.”

– Juan Guido Camaño, CEO of CTL

At the beginning of the implementation project, CTL identified all possible variables necessary for monitoring that should generate alarms in the case of an extraordinary event. These included:

  • Power outages
  • Internet connection status
  • Opened doors
  • Ambient and air conditioning temperatures
  • Refrigerator and freezer temperatures

In 2021 and 2022, the team at CTL carried out the proof of concept and the implementation of the tool in the first self-service markets, following a stage-by-stage plan.

First, they had to configure the Zabbix Agent on the monitoring device. After that, we created a standard monitoring model to be used in all establishments, according to data collection and alarm triggering needs. The alarms were subsequently adjusted, with possible responses implemented according to each variable identified. At that point, data visualization was organized in an external system just for reviewing the integrated dashboards.

Thanks to the implementation of IoT devices to control the temperature and the opening and closing of doors, alerts are sent to Zabbix in the event of unusual activity, such as very high or low temperatures, doors opened without supervision, and refrigerator doors open longer than the stipulated time, among other issues.

The results

Since the implementation of Zabbix project in QU!CK Scan & Go’s self-service markets, a variety of benefits have been apparent, including:

  • Increased control of self-service establishments
  • Faster resolution of incidents
  • Improved visualization of operations
  • Increased availability of services

However, the biggest returns on investment were observed at the financial level. With power outage monitoring and quick corrective actions, losses of perishable products have decreased by 75%.

“Losses of refrigerated products ceased to be an issue due to constant monitoring and immediate alerts in case of incidents during power outages.” – Juan Guido Camaño, CEO of CTL

Additionally, with real-time visualization of operations and business monitoring, the profitability of refrigerated products during power outage incidents has increased by 100%. Currently, QU!CK Scan & Go is the leading company in the self-service market segment in Argentina in terms of turnover, with a rapidly increased brand value.

“In a 100% self-service business model, investments made in incident identification technologies have a direct impact on the company’s results.” – Marcos Acuña, QU!CK Scan & Go

What’s next

While successful, the Zabbix project carried out by CTL and QU!CK Scan & Go is far from finished. The implementation of Zabbix in the company is accelerating at the same rate that new establishments are opened, and the proposal is to continue expanding this monitoring project by completely migrating data visualization to Zabbix.

“Having already managed to ensure the availability of the services associated with QU!CK operations, we are now focusing on the continuous infrastructure optimization.” – Juan Guido Camaño, CEO of CTL

For QU!CK Scan & Go, Zabbix has become much more than an IT infrastructure monitoring provider. Our solutions have improved their business and brought added value to their brand.

“With Zabbix, the return on investment after opening a new location is achieved 50% faster than it used to be.” – Marcos Acuña, Founder of QU!CK Scan & Go

Our goal of promoting seamless services to the technology market together with our partners is most visible in situations like this one, when we’re able to go beyond basic monitoring and position Zabbix as a vital support service for strategic decision making. To find out more about what Zabbix can do for customers in the retail sector, visit us here.

The post Monitoring Self-Service Markets with Zabbix and IoT 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.

Celebrating the community: Yang

Post Syndicated from Sophie Ashford original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/celebrating-the-community-yang/

We love hearing from members of the community and sharing the stories of amazing young people, volunteers, and educators who are using their passion for technology to create positive change in the world around them.

A woman is pictured sitting in the office. There's a window behind her with a view of the London skyline.

In our latest story, we’re heading to London to meet Yang, a Manager in Technology Consulting at EY specialising in Microsoft Business Applications, whose commitment to CoderDojo is truly inspiring. Yang’s passion for volunteering has grown since she first volunteered at a CoderDojo club at a local museum. In recent years, she has actively searched for ways to bring the CoderDojo movement to more children, and encouraged her colleagues to come along on the journey too.

Introducing Yang

When Yang was growing up, both of her parents worked in STEM, but her own journey into a career in technology took a varied route. After initially studying journalism in China, her path shifted when she pursued a Master’s in Digital Humanities at UCL, London, broadening her digital skills and paving the way for her current role.

On a weekend visit to a museum, Yang found the opportunity to volunteer at their CoderDojo. This experience sparked an enthusiasm to create more opportunities for young people to explore the world of computing, and this soon evolved into a plan to implement clubs at the EY offices. 

Building a community of mentors

With support from the EY Corporate Responsibility team, and fellow colleagues, Yang started to deliver Dojo sessions at the EY office in London. From the very first session, Yang was blown away by the level of enthusiasm among her colleagues, and their willingness to volunteer their time to support the club. She soon realised it was possible to roll this initiative out to other offices around the country, expanding the volunteer network and increasing their impact.

Yang mentors two young learners during a CoderDojo session.

Clubs have now been run in four EY offices across the UK, and the team has even seen the first international club take place, at the EY office in Baku, Azerbaijan. In total, EY clubs have seen around 350 young people attend and give coding a go.

Championing diversity in tech

As a woman in tech, Yang is all too aware of the gender imbalance in the industry, and this is something she wanted the clubs at the EY offices to address. 

“If there are some female role models, I think for a little girl grow up that means so much. Because if they can see somebody thrive in this industry, they will see themselves there one day. And that’s the inspiration.” – Yang

Yang actively encourages female participation in Dojo sessions, for example through holding sessions with a focus on engaging girls to mark International Women’s Day and Ada Lovelace Day. Through her leadership, she creates an inclusive environment where girls can envision themselves as future leaders. 

Yang mentors a young person during a CoderDojo session.

Yang’s motivation doesn’t only inspire the young people attending her clubs, but also resonates with those who work with her on a daily basis, including colleagues like Iman and Elizabeth, who shared how much they admire Yang’s dedication and energy.

“I would love to have had a role model like [Yang] when I was younger. She’s just so inspiring. She’s so full of energy. I mean, from my personal experience, when I was younger, we didn’t have anything to do with coding.

There were situations where I was vaguely interested [in computing] but was told that it wasn’t for girls. And now with Yang running these events, seeing the girls come here and being so interested and wanting to learn, it really opens up so many more doors for them that they don’t even realise.” – Elizabeth, colleague and CoderDojo volunteer

Seeing the impact of her mentorship and the enthusiasm of young participants has fueled Yang’s passion even further. 

“This has been a great opportunity to set up CoderDojo sessions for young people. I’ve had a lot of support from colleagues and other volunteers who have helped to run the sessions […] I feel super proud of what we’ve achieved so far.” – Yang

For Yang, mentorship isn’t just about teaching technical skills; it’s about helping young people develop confidence and resilience, and letting everyone know there is a place for them in computing should they want one.

Two mentors deliver a presentation during a CoderDojo session.

Continuing to make a difference in her community and beyond, Yang recently participated in the 68th annual UN Women’s Commission on the Status of Women, which is the UN’s largest annual gathering on gender equality and women’s empowerment. 

We’re delighted to be part of Yang’s journey, and can’t wait to see what she contributes to the world of tech next.

Help us celebrate Yang and her inspiring journey by sharing her story on X, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

The post Celebrating the community: Yang appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Making Patient Care Easier with Zabbix and Open-Future

Post Syndicated from Brian van Baekel original https://blog.zabbix.com/making-patient-care-easier-with-zabbix-and-open-future/28406/

The Antwerp University Hospital (UZA) is a university center known for top clinical and customer-friendly patient care, high-quality academic training, and groundbreaking scientific research with an important international dimension. The UZA has 593 hospital beds in 26 nursing units, as well as 41 highly specialized medical services where more than 800,000 patients are consulted every year and over 4,000 employees, including 642 doctors. Keep reading to see how Zabbix premium partner Open-Future rises to the challenge of monitoring this massive IT infrastructure.

The challenge

Due to the large amount of users connecting on a daily basis, the UZA’s Zabbix server was set up as a virtual machine with a front-end separate from the Zabbix server and database. Splitting the front-end from the Zabbix server allows them to use dedicated resources for the front-end and the Zabbix server.

Most of the monitoring is done by Zabbix agents on Linux and Windows. In order for the applications to see if everything is working as it should be, the Open-Future team leverages UserParameters and database monitoring with Zabbix Agent 2. For some more specific monitoring cases, we also make use of custom SQL scripts.

Because one server can have multiple teams responsible for just the application or the OS, getting the correct information to the right team proved to be a challenge. A simple solution was the creation of different trigger actions for every team that included only the triggers that were needed. Unfortunately this proved to be very difficult to manage over time and error-prone when changes were needed.

The solution

By making extensive use of tags in Zabbix, our team could add labels to the items and link them back to the correct user groups. This made it easier to send the right information to the correct teams and allowed them to both drastically reduce the number of actions that had to be created and simplify the actions that were created.

The results

Zabbix has proven itself as a powerful and versatile monitoring and management platform that allows our team to gain real-time insight into the performance of the UZA’s IT infrastructure and applications. Zabbix’s ability to collect and visualize various types of data (including network traffic, server load, application performance, and more) makes it easy to identify and resolve issues before they impact operations or patient care.

At present, Open-Future monitors about 1,400 hosts, a mix of Windows, Linux and BareMetal monitored by proxies. This allows us to monitor more then 10.000 metrics with more then 55,000 triggers to notify us in case of any potential issues. We make use of custom templates, plugins, and scripts to gather all needed information.

The impact of Zabbix on our operational efficiency cannot be overstated. Automated alerts and reporting functionality let us respond quickly to incidents and issues, which reduces downtime and maximizes the availability of critical systems. This has direct benefits for the UZA’s patients, as we can make sure that vital systems like electronic medical records are always available and that the quality of care is maintained at the highest level.

The post Making Patient Care Easier with Zabbix and Open-Future appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

What’s Up, Home? – Monitor your new Selenium

Post Syndicated from Janne Pikkarainen original https://blog.zabbix.com/whats-up-home-monitor-your-new-selenium/28394/

As Zabbix got the new fantastic Selenium-based synthetic web tests, you will now have a new component to monitor. How do you monitor Selenium? With Zabbix, of course! If you are impatient, feel free to download my very bare-bones example template.

How to monitor Selenium?

That part is easy. Selenium server exposes you at <your-selenium-URL>/status, for example, http://my.selenium.server:4444/status — the data from there is coming back as JSON. Either grab it all via LLD, low-level discovery rules, or just cherry-pick a few values to follow. I cherry-picked a few values, as the status contains so many items I would not ever need. No, my Selenium is not going to test stuff through the Microsoft Edge browser, for example. Below is a short snippet from the status page output.

{
  "value": {
    "ready": true,
    "message": "Selenium Grid ready.",
    "nodes": [
      {
        "id": "e284925e-c341-41fc-8380-581ead4987b6",
        "uri": "http:\u002f\u002f0.0.0.0:4444",
        "maxSessions": 10,
        "osInfo": {
          "arch": "aarch64",
          "name": "Mac OS X",
          "version": "14.5"
        },
        "heartbeatPeriod": 60000,
        "availability": "UP",
        "version": "4.21.0 (revision 79ed462ef4)",
        "slots": [

First, confirm that your Selenium gives you back that status page. Done? Done. Next, move on and create a new Zabbix template.

Create a new Zabbix template

Go to Data Collection -> Templates -> Create template, give it a name, and assign it to any template groups you want.

Next, click on Macros tab, and enter there {$SELENIUM_URL} = your.selenium.server.address/status

Done. Now save your template and start adding items.

Add new items to the template

First, add a new HTTP agent type item for fetching the master data.

Next, just add any items you would like to pick from the long JSON output: as I’m only interested if Selenium is ready and what is the message it is returning, here is an example of how I grab the items. First, the one that checks if Selenium is ready (true/false).

… and get that with item pre-processing by using JSONPath and Boolean to decimal, so you get numeric values for graphs and so on.

The end result

After this, you are already monitoring your new Selenium to make sure that it is feeling well.

Now go and add your Selenium to monitoring, too! Add some triggers and visualize it for yourself by using some of the new fancy widgets we have in Zabbix 7.0!

This post was originally published on the author’s page.

The post What’s Up, Home? – Monitor your new Selenium appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Zabbix Audit Log: Underlying Design and Considerations

Post Syndicated from Artjoms Rimdjonoks original https://blog.zabbix.com/zabbix-audit-log-underlying-design-and-considerations/28328/

An audit improves the security of a product, specifically the “non-repudiation” aspect in threat-models (risks are reduced when threat-agents cannot deny they did malicious activity). Zabbix 5.0 already had audit functionality, which received a major rewrite in 6.0 and several updates since then. In this blog post, we will go through them and get an overall picture of what has changed (and why).

The server side work on 6.0 was mostly done and further improved in 7.0. Front-end work is still ongoing (due to a larger scope). The main goal of a Zabbix audit is to track all configuration and settings changes – who, when, and what. This is an enterprise-level requirement, but non-enterprise users can also benefit.

The situation before Zabbix 6.0

When a host or template is added, only its name is recorded, without info about items, triggers, tags, etc. The linking of the template on the host is not audited. Everything on the screen is an audit done by the front-end, except the script execution. Zabbix Server itself actually does a lot of configuration changes, including adding and updating hosts and updating items (during LLD or when linking templates during auto-registration or network discovery), but there is no audit for that at all. There are also non-configuration changes (events) we want to audit, including:

  • Script execution (already audited in 5.0):

  • Reloading passive proxy config data (ZBXNEXT-1580), added in 6.2:

  • HA node status change (ZBXNEXT-6923), added in 6.0, history push API requests, and sending data to Zabbix server via API (ZBXNEXT-8541), added in 7.0:

Audit overview

Most Zabbix server audit logic is in:

a) Linking of templates (as a result of auto-registration or network discovery) with updates to:

  • Hosts
  • Items
  • Triggers
  • Graphs
  • Discovery Rules (and prototypes of everything above)
  • Web Scenarios

b) LLD, with the following entities created from prototypes:

  • Hosts
  • Items
  • Triggers
  • Graphs

New audit goals

In addition to the main functional requirement to “track all configuration and settings changes,” there are additional requirements aimed at making all audits faster and easier to manage:

  • All audits are now stored in a single table (Simpler and faster SQL queries)
  • Bulk SQL inserts and efficient ids generation
  • The audit of a particular entity stays longer than this entity. If an entity – (host or user) is deleted – the audit for it stays
  • The audit has an independent housekeeping schedule
  • It is still possible to disable the audit

CUID

Zabbix uses an ids table to generate ids:

When something (items, triggers etc.) needs to be generated, the related row in the ids table gets locked. This represents a problem for generating audit rows, because an audit can be generated independently by the server and front-end:

So, we could end up in a situation where a user cannot create an item because the server is holding a lock on the ids table while generating thousands of new LLD items. That is why a new method for generating ID was used for audits:

Thanks to it, the front-end and server can independently generate ids for audit entries without locks. The chance of collision is astronomically low.

System user

When it is not clear under which user an audit entry needs to be generated, it is recorded under “System user.” Most of the audits done by Server are done under “System user.” One exception is “script execution,”” since it is clear which user clicked on the script execution button. However, under which user should the server record audit entries when new items are generated during LLD? We could track down which user created the LLD rule, but what if the LLD rule was then modified by another user? For such cases, “System user” is used.

RecordSetID

From the spec: “To have the ability to recognize that some set of audit log records was created during the processing of a separate operation, a new column “Recordset ID” for audit log records will be provided. Each audit log record of the separate operation will have the same recordset ID. The recordset ID will be generated using the CUID algorithm.”

We can see that 2 graphs were created in a single operation (e.g. during the linking of one template with 2 graphs).

Audit details

A new audit contains much more information on what was changed with new details:

Upgrade patch

The warning, old auditlog, and auditlog_details tables are removed during the upgrade patch to 6.0. A new auditlog table is created, and the schema is updated.

  • auditid is now CUID
  • userid can be NULL (no more foreign reference on users table)
  • username is added
  • resource_cuid is added(alternative to resource, only for HA)
  • recordsetid is added
  • note and other auditlog_details table data now is in details (JSON)

BulkSQL

It is much more efficient to execute SQL queries in bulk. Zabbix already relies on bulk SQL queries:

Inserting and/or updating thousands of new items in one query is much faster than running thousands of individual queries. There are many reasons why this is the case, but the most basic answer is that DBs are designed this way. Another reason is that a large single query in PostgreSQL needs to start the planner/optimizer once, and then it would be able to properly analyze this large query and create an efficient execution plan.

When running thousands of separate queries, the planner/optimizer needs to be started for each query, and every time it would analyze the small query and decide there is not much it can do. When a server is doing some configuration changes, like LLD or templates linking during auto-registration or network discovery, it will insert/update/delete items/triggers and also auditlog entries in one large query.

Performance impact

Quick performance tests showed that the audit slows the server at most by 4-5%. The larger the setup, the smaller the impact will be.

Storage impact and administration

Zabbix audits can generate a lot of data. If your setup generates a lot of configuration, audits can eventually overrun the storage space. In this case, there are several audit configurations that could be helpful.

First of all, an audit can be disabled for all Zabbix, including the front-end:

Disabling audit is not advised, however – this option exists mostly as a possible workaround. Audit is enabled by default and Zabbix is developed and tested with audit enabled.

Log system actions button:

A disabled audit done by Zabbix server during auto-registration, network discover, and LLD. On some systems, these can generate a lot of configurations and audits, for example when LLD discovers hundreds of new devices every minute.

This could help reduce the storage impact while preserving all other audit functionality.

Housekeeping schedule:

If a host, trigger, or graph is deleted (by housekeeper or manually), the audit generated for it stays (as it exists in a separate table).

A Zabbix audit has its own independent housekeeping schedule, and it can be adjusted to suit your environment.

The post Zabbix Audit Log: Underlying Design and Considerations appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

Create anytime, anywhere with OctoStudio

Post Syndicated from Mitch Resnick & Natalie Rusk original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/octostudio-app/

Today our friends Mitch Resnick and Natalie Rusk from MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group tell you about OctoStudio, their free mobile app for children to create with code. Find their companion article for teachers in the upcoming issue of Hello World magazine, out for free on Monday 1 July.

When people see our new OctoStudio coding app, they often say that it reminds them of Scratch, the world’s most popular coding platform for kids. That’s not surprising, since the group of us developing OctoStudio were also involved in creating Scratch, with its distinctive building-block approach to programming. But there’s an important difference.

A young person connects coding blocks in their OctoStudio phone app.
A young person connects coding blocks to animate their OctoStudio project. Credit: MIT Media Lab

The difference is that we designed OctoStudio specifically for mobile phones and tablets, based on requests from educators in communities where children and families don’t have access to laptops and desktop computers, but do have access to mobile devices. 

OctoStudio takes advantage of special features of mobile phones and tablets, such as built-in sensors, so young people can create projects that respond to shaking or tilting, or even ‘beam’ signals between devices. And because of the small size of mobile devices, children and families can create projects anytime anywhere, and integrate digital coding with physical making.

OctoStudio makes it easy for beginners to start creating. Children can choose a character from a diverse collection of emojis, draw their own in the OctoStudio paint editor, or take and edit a photo. With just a couple coding blocks, they can make their characters move, jump, speak, or glow — and respond to shaking, tilting, or tapping on the phone or tablet:

A short OctoStudio blocks script.
A short OctoStudio blocks script.

Since our Lifelong Kindergarten group at the MIT Media Lab launched OctoStudio as a free app in October 2023, we’ve been delighted by the creativity and diversity of projects that children around the world have created with OctoStudio. As examples, we’d like to share with you three different projects from three different continents.

Getting active with OctoStudio 

When Xavier, a 10-year-old in Rwanda, started using OctoStudio, he was intrigued with the ‘When I shake’ block. He realized that he could create a step tracker project, by sensing how the phone shook each time he took a step. 

From the emoji library in OctoStudio, Xavier selected a rabbit, and he programmed it to grow a little bit each time he took a step. The more steps, the bigger the rabbit. To test the project, Xavier ran around in a circle. When he looked at the rabbit again, he saw how big it had grown and exclaimed: “Now it’s mega huge!” After finishing his project, Xavier made and posted a video tutorial to show others how to make their own step tracker using only 5 coding blocks.

Making creatures come to life on screen

One popular way to get started with OctoStudio is to make a favorite animal out of craft materials, take a photo of it, then bring your creation to life on the screen with OctoStudio coding blocks. As part of the Brazilian Creative Learning Network, educators Renato Barboza and Simone Lederman offer creative learning workshops in which children design creatures using a combination of natural materials and modeling clay. In these ‘fantastical creatures’ workshops, facilitators ask questions to encourage participants to design not only the creatures, but also develop ideas about how their creatures interact within their environment.

A girl holds up a winged creature she has grafted.

For example, two sisters created imaginary creatures, one with long sticks for arms, the other with big eyes and wings made from leaves. The sisters then took photos and made their creatures come to life in OctoStudio, making them jump, glow, and fly. They recorded sounds and explained more about their creatures, including where they live and what they like to eat.

A child uses the OctoStudio app on a mobile phone.

Beaming between devices

OctoStudio also opens up the possibility of projects involving multiple mobile devices, using the new ‘beam’ block to send signals between the devices (via Bluetooth). For example, children can make a character in a story or game look like it’s jumping from one device to another by sending a beam signal when the character reaches the edge of the screen.

Thawin, an elementary school student in Thailand, decided to use the ‘beam’ block to create a project about caring for the environment. He embedded one tablet in a cardboard cutout of a watering can, and programmed it to beam a signal each time he shook it as if he were sprinkling water. Then, he added a tree emoji to another tablet, and programmed the tree to grow each time it received a beam signal. He proudly shared his project with his classmates: each time someone shook the watering can, the tree grew.

Get started with OctoStudio

To get started with OctoStudio, you can download it for free from app stores for Android and iOS phones and tablets. The app is translated into more than 25 languages, and comes with sample projects and mini-tutorials. 

Here are some resources for learning and exploring more:

You can share your OctoStudio stories, photos, and videos on social media using @octostudioapp or #octostudio. We can’t wait to hear about your and your children’s experiences!

The post Create anytime, anywhere with OctoStudio appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.

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.

Monitor new Zabbix releases natively

Post Syndicated from Brian van Baekel original https://blog.zabbix.com/monitor-new-zabbix-releases-natively/28105/

In this blog post, I’ll guide you through building your own template to monitor the latest Zabbix releases directly from the Zabbix UI. Follow the simple walkthrough to know how.

Introduction

With the release of Zabbix 7.0, it is possible to see which Zabbix version you are running and what the latest version is:

A great improvement obviously but (at least in 7.0.0rc1) I am missing the triggers to notify me and perhaps also really interesting, there is nothing available about older versions.

Once I saw the above screenshot, I became curious about where that data actually came from, and what’s available. A quick deep-dive into the sourcecode ( https://git.zabbix.com/projects/ZBX/repos/zabbix/browse/ui/js/class.software-version-check.js#18 ) gave away the URL that is used for this feature: https://services.zabbix.com/updates/v1 Once you visit that URL you will get a nice JSON formatted output:

{
  "versions": [
    {
      "version": "5.0",
      "end_of_full_support": true,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1711361454",
        "release": "5.0.42"
      }
    },
    {
      "version": "6.0",
      "end_of_full_support": false,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1716274679",
        "release": "6.0.30"
      }
    },
    {
      "version": "6.4",
      "end_of_full_support": false,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1716283254",
        "release": "6.4.15"
      }
    }
  ]
}

And as you may know, Zabbix is quite good at parsing JSON formatted data. So, I built a quick template to get this going and be notified once a new version is released.

In the examples below I used my 6.4 instance, but this also works on 6.0 and of course 7.0.

Template building

Before we jump into the building part, it’s important to think of the best approach for this template. I think there are 2:

  • Create 1 HTTP item and a few dependent items for the various versions
  • Create 1 HTTP item, a LLD rule and a few item prototypes.

I prefer the LLD route, as that is making the template as dynamic as possible (less time to maintain it) but also more fun to build!

Let’s go.

First, you go to Data Collection -> Templates and create a new template there:

Of course, you can change the name of the template and the group. It’s completely up to you.

Once the template is created, it’s still an empty shell and we need to populate it. We will start with a normal item of type HTTP agent:

(note: screenshot is truncated)

We need to add 3 query fields:

  • ‘type’ with value ‘software_update_check’
  • ‘version’ with value ‘1.0’
  • ‘software_update_check_hash’ with a 64 characters: you can do funny things here 😉 for the example i just used ‘here_are_exact_64_characters_needed_as_a_custom_hash_for_zabbix_’

As we go for the LLD route, I already set the “History Storage period” to “Do not keep history”. If you are building the template, it’s advised to keep the history and make sure you’ve got data to work with for the rest of the template. Once everything works, go back to this item and make sure to change the History storage period.

In the above screenshot, you can see I applied 2 preprocessing steps already.

The first is to replace the text ‘versions’ with ‘data’. This is done because Zabbix expects an array ‘data’ for its LLD logic. That ‘data’ is not available, so I just replaced the text ‘versions’. Quick and dirty.
The second preprocessing step is a “discard unchanged with heartbeat”. As long as there is no new release, I do not care about the data that came in, yet I want to store it once per day to make sure the item is still working. With this approach, we monitor the URL every 30 minutes so we get ‘quick’ updates but still do not use a lot of disk space.

The result of the preprocessing configuration:

Now it’s time to hit the “test all steps” button and see if everything works. The result you’ll get is:

{
  "data": [
    {
      "version": "5.0",
      "end_of_full_support": true,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1711361454",
        "release": "5.0.42"
      }
    },
    {
      "version": "6.0",
      "end_of_full_support": false,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1716274679",
        "release": "6.0.30"
      }
    },
    {
      "version": "6.4",
      "end_of_full_support": false,
      "latest_release": {
        "created": "1716283254",
        "release": "6.4.15"
      }
    }
  ]
}

This is almost identical to the information directly from the URL, except that ‘versions’ is replaced by ‘data’. Great. So as soon as you save this item we will monitor the releases now (don’t forget to link the template to a host otherwise nothing will happen)!
At the same time, this information is absolutely not useful at all, as it’s just a text portion. We need to parse it, and LLD is the way to go.

In the template, we go to “Discovery rules” and click on “Create discovery rule” in the upper right corner.
Now we create a new LLD rule, which is not going to query the website itself, but will get its information from the HTTP agent we’ve just created.

In the above screenshot, you see how it’s configured. a name, type ‘Dependent item’ some key just because Zabbix requires a key, and the Master item is the HTTP agent item we just created.

Now all data from the http agent item is pushed into the LLD rule as soon as it’s received, and we need to create LLD macros out of it. So in the Discovery rule, you jump to the 3rd tab ‘LLD macros’ and add a new macro there:

{#VERSION} with JSONPATH$..version.first()

Once this is done save the LLD rule and let’s create some item prototypes.

The first item prototype is the most complicated, the rest are “copy/paste”, more or less.

We create a new item prototype that looks like this:

As the type is dependent and it is getting all its information from the HTTP agent master item, there is preprocessing needed to filter out only that specific piece of information that is needed. You go to the preprocessing tab and add a JSONpath step there:

 

For copy/paste purposes: $.data.[?(@.version=='{#VERSION}’)].latest_release.created.first()
There is quite some magic happening in that step. We tell it to use a JSONpath to find the correct value, but there is also a lookup:

[?(@.version=='{#VERSION}')]

What we are doing here is telling it to go into the data array, look for an array ‘version’ with the value {#VERSION}. Of course that {#VERSION} LLD macro is going to be replaced dynamically by the discovery rule with the correct version. Once it found the version object, go in and find the object  ‘latest_release’ and from that object we want the value of ‘created’. Now we will get back the epoch time of that release, and in the item we parse that with Unit unixtime.

Save the item, and immediately clone it to create the 2nd item prototype to get the support state:

Here we change the type of information and of course the preprocessing should be slightly different as we are looking for a different object:

JSONPath:

$.data.[?(@.version=='{#VERSION}')].end_of_full_support.first()

Save this item as well, and let’s create our last item to get the minor release number presented:

The preprocessing is again slightly different:

JSONPath:

$.data.[?(@.version=='{#VERSION}')].latest_release.release.first()

At this point you should have 1 master item, 1 LLD rule and 3 Item prototypes.

Now, create a new host, and link this template to it. Fairly quick you should see data coming in and everything should be nicely parsed:

The only thing that is missing now is a trigger to get alerted once a new version has been released, so let’s go back into the template, discovery rule and find the trigger prototypes. Create a new one that looks like this:

Since we populated the even name as well, our problem name will reflect the most recent version already:

 

Enjoy your new template! 🙂

The post Monitor new Zabbix releases natively appeared first on Zabbix Blog.

The Clubs Conference is coming back

Post Syndicated from Tom Hadfield original https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/the-clubs-conference-is-coming-back/

Following the huge success of last year’s Clubs Conference, we are delighted to announce that we will be hosting the second-ever Clubs Conference on Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December 2024 in Cambridge, UK.

Two educators at a conference.

The event will be a weekend of learning and connecting for volunteers and educators involved in Code Club, CoderDojo, and other initiatives we support. We’d love for you to join us!

What you can look forward to

This year, we’re bringing the conference home to our offices in the centre of Cambridge.

On Friday 29 November, you’ll have the opportunity to register early and attend an informal networking event with community members, including the Foundation team. 

Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December will be filled with learning and development opportunities for you, including:

  • Thought-provoking talks and discussions
  • Hands-on, easy-to-follow workshops exploring a range of coding and digital making activities and related topics
  • Opportunities to connect with a diverse range of volunteers and educators

Join us to learn from your peers running clubs in various contexts, develop your digital making skills, and share your own insights. We look forward to learning with you.

Two smiling educators hold the Code Club posters.

Interested in attending or contributing to the Clubs Conference?

If you think you might want to attend the Clubs Conference, please fill in our form to express your interest. We will then get in touch when you can book your tickets. Tickets will be £5 for both days combined.

I want to express my interest
An educator delivers a presentation during a workshop.

Part of what made last year’s Clubs Conference so special was the range of exciting activities led by community members. If you’d like to host or co-host an activity this year, please also indicate this in the expression of interest form. We’ll be in touch in a few weeks to ask you more about your plans.

Possible activities include:

  • Workshops
  • Discussion sessions
  • Talks
  • Project demonstrations

Check out last year’s talks for inspiration.

Bursaries for participants in the UK and Ireland

If you would love to participate but you feel the costs of travelling would prevent you, you may be able to apply for a travel bursary. 

To be eligible for a bursary, you need to:

  • Be registered as a club leader or volunteer at a Code Club or CoderDojo within the UK or Ireland
  • Be available to attend the Clubs Conference in Cambridge on both Saturday 30 November and Sunday 1 December 2024

Please let us know whether you require a travel bursary when you fill in the expression of interest form.

If you’re not in the UK or Ireland and have any questions about travel, please send us a message through our contact page using the subject ‘Clubs Conference’.

If you have any suggestions about the Clubs Conference, we’d love to hear them. Let us know through the contact page, or on social with the tag #ClubsCon24.

The post The Clubs Conference is coming back appeared first on Raspberry Pi Foundation.