Integrating with Zabbix

Zabbixis an open-source monitoring solution that monitors various parameters of a network and the health and integrity of servers, virtual machines, applications, services, databases, websites, the cloud, and so on.

Configure an integration with Zabbix, to view the event, metric, and topology data from Zabbix in the following products and derive actionable insights:

BMC Helix Operations Management
BMC Helix Discovery
BMC Helix AIOps

Editing and deleting integrations

As a tenant administrator, perform the following steps to integrate with Zabbix, verify the integration, and view the collected data in various BMC products.

Before you begin

Have the egress IP of your tenant. Request the egress IP from BMC Software if you don't already have it.
Ensure that you have a firewall rule to allow traffic from the egress IP to the Zabbix host on the listening port (default is 80).

To integrate with Zabbix

In BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations, on the CONNECTORS tab, clickin the SOURCES panel.
Click Zabbix .
Specify the source connection details:
1. Specify a unique instance name.
  Recommendation
  We recommend that you specify the instance name in the following format:
```
<sourceType>_<sourceControllerServerName>{_<InstanceQualifier>}                    
```
  The instance qualifier helps you to distinguish the multiple instances configured from the same source server. For example, you can name your instances as Zabbix_Host_PROD, Zabbix_Host_TEST, and so on.
2. Specify the Zabbix host name.
3. Specify the Zabbix HTTP or HTTPS port number depending on the connection protocol (default value is 80).
4. Select the HTTPS option to use an https connection to the Zabbix host.
  Warning
  
  We recommend that you do not select the Allow Unsigned Certificate option in a production environment. You might want to select this option to allow unsigned certificates in a test environment. See the Zabbix documentation to learn how to install SSL certificates.
5. Specify the number of maximum concurrent REST API requests that should be executed during a data collection schedule (default value is 5).
6. Specify the user name and password. Ensure that the specified user can access the Zabbix REST API.
Click VALIDATE AND CREATE.
The specified connection details are validated and the source connection is created in the Source Connection list.
Select the source connection that you created from the list if it is not selected already.
Important

The destination host connection is created and configured automatically for each tenant when the source connection is created.
Clear the options for which you don't want to collect data.

Click a data type and specify the configuration parameters in the Collectors section as described in the following table:

Parameter Name	Data Type
Parameter Name	Zabbix Events	Zabbix Metrics	Zabbix Topology
Collection Schedule Specify the data collection frequency (in minutes). For example, if you set this parameter to 5 mins, the collector runs every 5 mins. For more information about this parameter, see Data collection schedule.	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Applicable BMC recommendation: 60 minutes
Data Collection Window Specify the historical time period (in minutes) from the current time for which the data should be collected from Zabbix. For example, if you set Collection Schedule parameter to 5 mins (considering 00:32 as the current time) and the Data Collection Window parameter to 5 mins, data is extracted from 00:27 to 00:32. For more information about this parameter, see Data collection window.	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Applicable BMC recommendation: 5 minutes	Applicable BMC recommendation: 60 minutes
Data Latency Specify the time (in minutes) by which the data time window should be shifted far back on the timeline. This parameter is useful in slow, late data availability situations. For example, if you set the Collection Schedule parameter to 5 mins, the Data Collection Window parameter to 5 mins, and the Data Latency parameter to 2 mins, data is extracted from 00:23 to 00:28, when run from just after 00:30. For more information about this parameter, see Data latency.	Applicable	Applicable	Applicable
Severities Select one or more event severities from the list.	Applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
Query size Specify the number of queries to be sent to Zabbix so that it is not overloaded (default value is 25)	Not applicable	Applicable	Not applicable
Hosts Select All or a subset of hosts from the list. This list of hosts is updated automatically from Zabbix.	Not applicable	Applicable	Not applicable
Applications Select All or a subset of applications from the list. This list of applications is updated automatically from Zabbix.	Not applicable	Applicable	Not applicable

Click CREATE COLLECTORS to create the required collector streams for the selected data types

Click a data type and specify the configuration parameters in the Distributors section as described in the following table:

Parameter Name	Default
Max Batching Size Specify the maximum number of data items to send in a single POST request to the destination API. The batch size depends on the destination’s ability to buffer the incoming data.	250
Max Batching Delay Specify the maximum time (in seconds) to wait before building a batch and processing.	3 seconds
Base Retry Delay Specify the initial time (in seconds) for which to wait before retrying to build a batch and processing. The waiting time increases in the following sequence: n¹, n², n³, and so on, where n indicates the number of seconds. For example, if you set the value to 2 seconds, retry is performed after 2, 4, 8, 16, ... seconds.	2 seconds
Max Intra-Retry Delay Specify the maximum limit for the base retry delay. For example, if you set the value of this parameter to 60 seconds and the value of the Base Retry Delay parameter to 2 seconds, retries would be performed 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 64,...seconds later again.	60 seconds
Max Retry Duration Specify the total time for retrying a delivery. For REST destinations, a delivery is a batch of data items in one POST request. For example, if you set the value of this parameter to 8 hours, and the value of the Base Retry Delay parameter to 2 seconds, requests are sent for 2+4+8+16+32+64+132... until 8 hours in total duration is reached. After that, no subsequent attempts are made to retry the delivery. The assumption here is that if there is an outage or other issue with the destination tool, recovery should take less than the value of the Max Retry Duration parameter to complete.	5 minutes

Click CREATE DISTRIBUTORS to create the required distributor streams for the selected data types.
Click one of the following buttons:
- SAVE STREAM: Click this button if you want to edit the integration details before creating the instance. After you save the stream, the instance that you just created is listed in the SOURCES panel. Move the slider to the right to start the data stream.
- SAVE AND START STREAM: Click this button if you want to save the integration details and start receiving data immediately.

For more information about data streams, see Starting or stopping data streams.

To verify the integration

In BMC Helix Intelligent Integrations , on the SOURCES panel, confirm that the data streams for the integration you created are running. Data streaming is indicated by moving colored arrows.

A moving dark blue arrow () indicates that event data is being streamed.
A moving red arrow () indicates that metric data is being streamed.
A moving light blue arrow () indicates that topology data is being streamed.

To view events in BMC Helix Operations Management

In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Events to view the events received from Zabbix .

Important

If an event does not include the source's host name from which the event has been received, the Host column on the Events page shows the name of the computer where Zabbix is installed.

For information about events, see Monitoring and managing events Open link .

To view metrics in BMC Helix Operations Management

In BMC Helix Operations Management, select Monitoring > Devices.
Click the links for the required device.
On the Monitors tab, click the required monitor.
The Performance Overview tab shows the metrics graph. For information about metrics, see Viewing collected data .

To view the topology data in BMC Helix Discovery

In BMC Helix Discovery, select Explore > Data, and click <count> Import Records in the Miscellaneous section. The Import Record List page shows the CI records received from Zabbix. For information about records, see Managing your IT infrastructure Open link .

To view services and situations in BMC Helix AIOps

Before you view services and situations in BMC Helix AIOps, create a Business Service model in BMC Helix Discovery. For information about creating models, see Creating a model Open link .

In BMC Helix AIOps, on the Overview page, view the services and situations for the event and topology data received from Zabbix.