Differences and complementarity between zabbix and cloudmonitor from the user experience

Both ordinary webmasters and professional O & M personnel need to comprehensively monitor their websites and servers. First, we can monitor the running status of network components, server security and stability at any time. Second, we can determine whether the cloud services used meet the project requirements through monitoring and analysis, whether to continue using the service. If a server or project fails, the service can be promptly reported to the IT management personnel, and the highest efficiency can be handled in the shortest time.

Therefore, we must rely on professional monitoring tools. Among the many open-source monitoring tools, many professionals will choose Zabbix, Nagios, Ganglia, Zenoss, and so on, especially the highest degree of Zabbix. Of course, in recent years, domestic and foreign service providers have also provided a variety of free or paid visualized and easy-to-operate online monitoring products. For example, many fans of the monitoring products that are used in China and have rich functions.

I have also used Zabbix and cloudmonitor, and many teams have also used these two products. In this article, the old left compares and analyzes the differences and complementarity between monitoring treasure and Zabbix monitoring from the perspective of actual user experience.

1. Ease of installation

Let's talk about the ease of use. Before preparing to compare Zabbix and monitoring Bao, Old Left tries to install the Zabbix environment on the new server. From the installation experience, it is difficult to successfully deploy Zabbix if you are not professional O & M personnel or are not familiar with Linux servers. Although there are a lot of tutorials and books on Zabbix on the Internet, there is still a certain threshold in the actual installation process, which is not suitable for personal webmasters and more Internet Small and micro entrepreneurs. Of course, there is no problem for O & M personnel with good foundations.

In stark contrast, the deployment of the monitoring site does not require any configuration on the server. You only need to register an account on the official website of the monitoring site, then, you can automatically add monitoring objects based on websites and projects. This SaaS-based deployment model is all WYSIWYG and easy to use.

In addition, if Zabbix is used, a separate server is required as the monitoring server, and the monitoring service provided by monitoring Bao is completely based on the monitoring service, the hardware cost is reduced.

II. Alert methods

One is a foreign product, and the other is a domestic product. The first thing Left thinks of is the difference in alarm methods. In this regard, especially for domestic users, the alarm of monitoring treasures is advantageous and convenient.

Cloudmonitor alarm supports a variety of mainstream communication tools, including email, SMS, telephone, APP push, and WeChat. You can directly select and set monitoring items when creating a monitoring project.

Zabbix monitoring also supports email, SMS, and other means in the form of alarms. However, you must configure and define scripts for all alert methods. Although both functions can be implemented, the Zabbix alarm method is relatively cumbersome and requires skillful use of program scripts.

Therefore, the monitoring platform also integrates mainstream open-source monitoring products to enable cross-application data Association analysis and hierarchical alarms. That is to say, if you use zabbix, you can also use the monitoring tool to send alarms.

Third, differences in monitoring report analysis

For general O & M, the purpose of enabling the monitoring service is to monitor the normal services of websites, databases, servers, and networks. If any problem occurs, it can be solved in a timely manner. However, for the management layer, it is necessary to timely and accurately understand the running status of business projects and the usage of infrastructure resources. Monitoring logs alone are difficult to handle, and reports can help managers focus on core issues, analyze and locate data in real time, and help them make quick decisions. Therefore, whether monitoring tools have powerful and detailed report functions is one of the important factors to consider when selecting and using them.

During the monitoring project, the old left found that as a commercial product, monitoring Bao's reports are indeed rich and beautiful. For example, you can monitor the node response speed, compare historical data, and rank data. You can use a paid solution to customize the monitoring node. The data will automatically generate a graphical report, which is very suitable for common O & M and management. Zabbix monitoring also has the report function, which is the most powerful in terms of customization, but it can be achieved only after secondary development by O & M personnel.

1. Availability and response time statistics

Through a distributed monitoring network, you can view the status of websites and servers accessed by users all over the country or even overseas at any time, and automatically generate visual charts. Pie chart, curve chart, bar chart, and experience map provide an elegant visual experience. Then, we can analyze the stability of the purchased VM instances, storage resources, network resources, and CDN based on the response time and available regions, and make targeted adjustments and optimizations based on the fault conditions.

2. Historical snapshots

The historical snapshots can be used to quickly restore the site where the fault occurred, so as to accurately identify the cause of the fault and quickly repair the service.

3. SLA Report

SLA reports can help enterprises analyze and predict the overall trend of monitoring projects. For example, failure cause statistics, stability level, and stability ranking statistics are waiting. Every Monday helps you review and analyze the overall performance of your website over the past week.

If necessary, cloudmonitor can also issue SLA service level certificates. Old Zuo has seen a webmaster and a blogger who hangs the SLA certificate on his website. I don't know if the service grade of the website is relatively high.

Fourth, global monitoring node deployment

If template, custom, and flexibility are the advantages of zabbix, the weakness of zabbix is distributed monitoring.

Let's talk about the monitoring site. Cloudmonitor provides 222 distributed monitoring nodes in China and abroad, and continues to increase. For Zabbix users, although so many monitoring sites can be deployed, the cost of light servers is not a fraction.

Because the monitoring node is selected based on the actual project, the network access speed and service stability in the region where the target enterprise user is located can be perceived.

The free version of cloudmonitor provides users with three free monitoring nodes. Enterprise users can perform monitoring based on their own business and user characteristics, select domestic and overseas monitoring sites deployed in different regions and carriers from the monitoring nodes of the monitoring site.

After creating a monitoring project, you can add a monitoring project to a monitoring region. All nodes of Jiangsu Telecom are monitored separately as groups.

Then, you can add monitoring items for the monitoring sites of Jiangsu Telecom separately.

Then, you can see the user response statistics for the monitoring sites in Jiangsu in the monitoring site.

Fifth, summary

From the product features, both monitoring and Zabbix can achieve most of our monitoring needs for common users. However, for entry-level O & M personnel and entrepreneurial projects, it is easier to monitor and use it directly.

As the best open-source monitoring software, Zabbix requires certain O & M Technologies and secondary development capabilities if it can be used freely and flexibly, after in-depth understanding, you can monitor and set your own projects.

We cannot say which one is better. We can only say that both of them have their own characteristics. If the user lacks O & M and development capabilities, or the monitoring system does not need to perform in-depth monitoring on the underlying applications, you can use the monitoring treasure without changing the server configuration to meet most monitoring needs. If we have a deep understanding of Zabbix and need to customize it, we can monitor it based on Zabbix. Of course, we can also use monitoring treasure to supplement monitoring points, alarms, and reports, the two products can also be seamlessly connected.