Zabbix Conference Benelux 2025 is right around the corner, which means that it’s time for another interview with a Conference presenter. This week, we’re talking to Rick van der Ploeg, a Zabbix consultant and expert at Opensource ICT Solutions. We asked him about the road that led him to Zabbix and how frontend scripts can open the door to enhanced Zabbix functionality.
Please tell us a bit about yourself and the journey that led you to Zabbix.
I’m a Zabbix consultant at OICTS. During my time as a DevOps engineer for an MSP, my team was tasked with implementing a monitoring solution for our customers’ network equipment. We successfully integrated Zabbix and never looked back. Since then, I have gained extensive experience with Zabbix, and I recently even became a certified Zabbix Expert.
How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks do you take care of on a daily basis?
I’ve been working with Zabbix for over five years now. The first version I used was 4.4, and a lot has changed since then! As a Zabbix consultant, my main role is advising on and implementing Zabbix solutions for our customers. This means anything from building custom templates to installing and managing complete monitoring environments.
Can you drop a couple of hints about what we can expect from your conference presentation?
I’ll be talking about different ways to utilize frontend scripts in Zabbix, and I’ll also showcase some relevant examples of how scripts can enhance Zabbix’s functionality.
How did you decide on the topic of Zabbix and frontend scripts? Was there a specific catalyst or event that led you to this topic?
What I love about frontend scripts is their ability to extend Zabbix’s functionality to almost anything you can think of. Over the years, I’ve developed several solutions that have significantly increased the value and efficiency of the Zabbix installations I’ve worked on.
I’ve noticed that many people are still unaware of the power and possibilities that frontend scripts offer, so I figured this would be a great topic to talk about.
What makes Zabbix especially well-suited for frontend scripts?
For me, the best thing about frontend scripts in Zabbix is that you can use data from Zabbix as input for your scripts. This flexibility allows you to create simple yet powerful scripts that can be easily used by any type of Zabbix user.
This year’s Zabbix Conference Benelux is rapidly approaching, and to whet our audience’s appetite we sat down for a short interview with one of the conference’s featured presenters. Open Source Consultant Ivo Schooneman works for our Certified Partner Xifeo ICT B.V., and we quizzed him about how he got started in the open-source movement, what led him down the path to Zabbix, and how he sees Zabbix and MQTT (Message Queuing Telemetry Transport) fitting into a new world of connected and smart devices.
Please tell us a bit about yourself and how you got to this point in your career.
I started using Linux and open-source software in the mid-1990s, building my own home server for email, a website, and a firewall. After my internship in a Linux team, I got a job offer that I accepted. From there I became a consultant, helping small companies to build their servers. Eventually, I moved to a bigger company to offer consultancy services to banks, telecom providers, television stations, and streaming providers.
When you work in a company with a lot of open source enthusiasts, you hear a lot about new products and keep growing to make the environment for your customers better every day. I completed a lot of certifications and training courses – AWS, RHCA, Python, and many more. At some point, I wanted to move on, so I joined Xifeo, where I got the boost I needed to specialize in Zabbix.
How long have you been using Zabbix? What kind of Zabbix-related tasks do you and your team get involved in daily?
I’ve been using Zabbix for about 4 years. When I joined Xifeo in 2022, I took the opportunity to give myself a boost by gaining my Zabbix Certified User, Zabbix Certified Specialist, and Zabbix Certified Professional certifications. I’ve grown to trust it so much that even my home network is monitored with Zabbix!
Can you give us a few clues about what we can expect to hear during your presentation at Zabbix Conference Benelux?
I will talk about the history of MQTT, where it started, how it works with pub/sub, and talk about some scenarios where it could be used – there are always other options. At that point we will take a look at the plugin configuration and see how to split your different subscriptions to multiple topics and servers.
In your experience, does Zabbix lend itself easily to the IoT generally and MQTT data specifically?
I never feel like it’s necessary to have the color of my lights in Zabbix, but the power usage of my appliances, temperatures, particular matter in my rooms, that’s data you can monitor and alert on! MQTT is a great and easy way to do that, as writing API calls for every device would be very time consuming.
What changes do you think MQTT data and the IoT will bring to the world of monitoring over the next decade or so?
With more and more devices capable of measuring different things, we can gather more data than ever before. As the prices of sensors keep dropping, we can measure about anything we want on any place you want. By using a standard protocol, such as MQTT, you will have a uniform way of handling the data. IoT will help us save power and make life easier!
Zabbix has always seen our mission as going beyond simply delivering a product. From the start, building a strong global community has created and supported a better business model, and an important part of building our community is our practice of taking our message to the places where our users, partners, and potential clients live and work.
That’s where Zabbix Conferences enter the picture. Since 2011, they’ve grown from yearly events on our home turf in Riga to multi-day extravaganzas in locations as far-flung as Tokyo, Shanghai, and Porto Alegre. There’s something about the conferences in the Benelux countries, however, that seems to boost our reach a little further and create a little more enthusiasm every time we visit.
“Zabbix Conference Benelux is a can’t-miss event for European Zabbix enthusiasts and professionals. It attracts Zabbix experts from the retail, IT, banking, and government sectors (just to name a few), and brings everyone together with a shared sense of purpose. It’s the perfect place to network with like-minded individuals and come away with plenty of inspiration for your own projects.”
– Alexei Vladishev, Zabbix Founder and CEO
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There’s just something about Benelux
The politico-economic union of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg is a fascinating locale for any event – the three nations that make up the union each bring their own customs, history, language, and business culture to the mix, which creates an intriguing backdrop for any kind of business.
“A Zabbix Conference Benelux is a unique event because of the way the people of the region make their guests feel welcome and create an atmosphere of belonging, togetherness, and support.”
-Alexei Vladishev, Zabbix Founder and CEO
From our perspective at Zabbix, Benelux is home not only to a sizable community of existing clients and partners, but also an enormous pool of potential new ones. We’ve thought long and hard about what we can offer to that particular group when we make our (almost) annual pilgrimage to Benelux, so keep reading for some insight into what makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux not only special, but worth attending.
Learn from the best
Attending a Zabbix Conference Benelux is first and foremost an excellent opportunity to catch up with the very latest trends and developments in the world of IT monitoring, including Zabbix proxy high-availability and load balancing as well as automating Zabbix workflows with Zabbix API and zabbix_utils.
Our conference speakers represent a broad cross-section of industries and experiences, and they pride themselves on coming up with fresh, innovative topics – in fact, many of them share their use cases and results for the first time on our stage. What’s more, the energy and dynamics of our workshops and live Q&A sessions foster open dialogue, richer conversations, and greater innovation.
“The Zabbix Conference Benelux I attended in 2023 stands out to me because of a very informative speech by (Zabbix Trainer and Consultant at Opensource ICT Solutions) Brian Van Baekel about his experience with Zabbix in an MSP environment. On top of that, the conference was organized in the beautiful center of Antwerp, the atmosphere was very friendly as usual, and we had some fascinating events after the conference as well.”
– Kaspars Mednis, Zabbix Chief Trainer
Getting to know you
The world may be increasingly dominated by virtual interactions and digital connections, but there’s still something unique and special about face-to-face conferences. At Zabbix, our feeling has always been that in-person events are crucial to strengthening the bonds between our team members, our partners, and our users. A Zabbix Conference Benelux gives participants a chance to truly get in touch with the people behind our product, allowing for deeper understanding and stronger relationships, which are the foundation of all successful business collaborations.
“The year I attended (2023) I really enjoyed the overall spirit of the event, the atmosphere in Antwerp, and the opportunities to get to know the Zabbix community closer.”
– Aleksandrs Petrovs-Gavrilovs, Zabbix Technical Support Engineer
Drumming up new business
Attending a Zabbix Conference Benelux isn’t just about exchanging information, but also about providing attendees with opportunities for spontaneous conversations, chance encounters, and relationship-building that can lead to collaborations, partnerships, and future business opportunities for everyone involved.
Business leaders can learn about the technology and challenges of Zabbix and our partners and have a frank dialogue that helps them understand their own needs from a different perspective. And as anyone who has spent time at a Zabbix Conference Benelux can tell you, those kinds of free-flowing conversations tend to happen naturally and organically when both parties are in a friendly, welcoming environment that also happens to be just a bit outside of their home turf.
Networking and hospitality
Speaking of creating a welcoming environment, it’s impossible to underestimate how important quirky yet fun event venues and incredible hospitality are to creating an ideal event for learning and networking. Zabbix Technical Support Engineer Edgars Melveris is a veteran of Zabbix Conferences in 2020 (Utrecht, the Netherlands) and 2023 (Antwerp, Belgium). He says that it’s the combination of in-depth technical information, fascinating locales, and good times that makes a Zabbix Conference Benelux special to him.
“The National Military Museum in Utrecht really impressed me, and I also enjoyed the atmosphere and sense of community at the event venues. When it comes to conference content, (Zabbix Chief Trainer) Kaspars Mednis’ workshop on ‘New and improved SNMP bulk data collection in Zabbix 6.4’ has only become more relevant with the passage of time, and (Zabbix Trainer and Consultant at Opensource ICT Solutions) Nathan Liefting’s presentation on ‘Zabbix Native HA: Lessons Learned and Tips & Tricks’ was particularly useful to me in my role.”
-Edgars Melveris, Zabbix Technical Support Engineer
Zabbix Conference Benelux 2024 will take place in Utrecht, the Netherlands, on May 24-25. To find out more information, register to attend, or sign up as a speaker, please visit the conference page. We’re looking forward to seeing you soon!
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