NetApp Cloud Insights vs. Zabbix

For example, we had an application slowdown. It looked like the slowdown was storage. However, it was a malformed SQL query that no one realized was pulling data from the storage location that also housed the application. Cloud Insights saved us hours of downtime and frustration. Cloud Insights pinpointed which system was hogging resources. What makes Cloud Insights special is the way it looks at the data collected from the data sources. The insights it provides into the flow of data; sheds new light on how things work in your environment.

Incentivized

Zabbix is very well suited for infrastructure monitoring i.e. the underlying host servers, basically, compute nodes. However, it has limited FM & PM capabilities for the workloads, i.e., the virtual machines (VMs). Zabbix has an easy-to-use GUI which can be explored easily & provides good filtering of the data.

Incentivized

• The visibility and usage optimization are the most valuable features.
• Ease to use for basic functionality.
• It is good for giving an overview of the systems and for tracking long-term trends. It is handy for root cause analysis.

Incentivized

• Collecting hardware data - CPU, Memory, Network, and Disk Metrics are collected and reported on.
• Flexible design - It is very easy to build out even very large environments via the templating system. You can also start where you are - network monitoring, server monitoring, etc. and then build it out from there as time and resources permit.
• Provides a "plugin architecture" (via XML templates) to allow end users to extend it to monitor all kinds of equipment, software, or other metrics that are not already added into the software already.
• Very complete documentation. Almost every aspect of Zabbix has been documented and reported on.
• Cost - Zabbix is FOSS software and always free. Support is reasonably priced and readily available.

Incentivized

• Need to add more cloud resources for optimization, as many are still not compatible
• Data retention time is limited.
• Premium subscription is costly.

Incentivized

• In a busy Zabbix environment, it can easily overwhelm the underlying database. Plan on having SSDs and a significant server infrastructure to keep up with more than a hundred hosts.
• Building out Zabbix metrics that suit your environment can be very time consuming. When choosing a monitoring platform like Zabbix, expect a steep learning curve and to invest significant resources to make the tool valuable.
• This is less important than it has been in the past, but current versions of Zabbix still do not handle IPMI checks of hardware very well. We needed to write our own wrapper for IPMI checks rather than using the built in IPMI poller.

Incentivized

It is free. It didn't cost anything to implement (other than my time and the cost incurred for it) and it is filling a badly needed gap in our IT infrastructure. Support is available if we have issues and can be done annually or paid for on a per incident basis as needed. Expansion, updates, and all other future lifecycle activities are likewise free of cost, so as long as someone is able to implement/maintain the software (and the OSS project is maintained) then I imagine the company will never leave it.

Incentivized

I have been extremely happy with its usability. You can take thins as they are out of the box and it is useful. You can carry it as far as you want to go and every step you take improves your ROI.

Incentivized

If you go deeper than the dashboards, the user friendliness goes away quickly

1. It's very easy to contact the customer support service, and they seem to be very happy to help at any time.
2. Timeliness of the support's response. Support is very active when responding to the customer's complaint or queries.
3. Technical support always provided the solutions to the problems encountered.
4. Overall customer support quality is good.

Incentivized

The setup is the most time-consuming portion of using zabbix. It takes a lot of effort to shape it into a usable format and even then it can get very messy. It's not exactly intuitive and as mentioned the UI seems a bit antiquated. If I was to roll out a monitoring solution from scratch, I'd probably look for alternatives which are easier to use and maintain.

Incentivized

We are a mainly Windows environment, so it would be useful if we could have used Active Directory to deploy agents. As of version 4.2, Zabbix has announced a new agent MSI file to allow exactly that. Unfortunately, we didn't have that option. Also, for Linux and MAC deployments, there is no simple way to deploy that. Using remote scripts you may be able to create something, but most places will opt for either SNMP (agentless) or manual installation of agents to add to Zabbix. A way of deploying agents via discovery would go a long way to helping in the adoption of the tool.

Incentivized

For a while, we were using Zabbix to monitor our Kubernetes applications and microservices on our infrastructure in more than one public cloud platform. Cloud Insights has much better visualized dashboards. In addition, despite such a large number of quality features, it's still priced competitively.

Incentivized

We're using the Solarwinds suite as our global monitoring standard, but it is very complex and its licensing model makes it difficult to monitor a wide range of technologies. So, we're using Zabbix as a complement on our monitoring process. Zabbix is a way more flexible and has free integrations to a wide range of technologies. It is also more 'user friendly' and easy to manage.

Incentivized

Once you install the acquisition unit and start collecting data, you can immediately begin using it. It is very self-explanatory and helpful. I could have used Cloud Insights without working with the NetApp Cloud Insights support team. I am glad I engaged them though. They helped me carry Cloud Insights to a new level and it fast-tracked the process that would have taken me time to complete.

Incentivized

• Performance and security have improved
• Cloud Secure lets you get real-time alerts on any security breach, like a ransomware attack or something similar
• You can easily notice if something weird is happening on the cloud and later prevent that

Incentivized

• Zabbix simply makes it easier to identify, and subsequently resolve problems quickly
• Zabbix gives one web page to look at to see a list of all on-going issue in a single place
• Zabbix can automate response to alerts. For example, Zabbix allows you the customization to take a monitored server out of production rotation if it is identified as unhealthy

Incentivized