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I don't understand this idea that you should build a metrics system from components rather than use one of the end-to-end projects out there like Zabbix. Can so

I don't understand this idea that you should build a metrics system from components rather than use one of the end-to-end projects out there like Zabbix. Can someone clue me in?

otterley 13y ago
I don't, either. And Graphite doesn't allow you to tag metrics for easy aggregation, which is a huge win if you're monitoring more than a few instances of a metric. (Nor does Zabbix, BTW.) I'm a reasonably happy Datadog customer.
- jacobscott 13y ago
  Have you used any other cloud monitoring/metric/etc providers? If so, how do they compare to DataDog?
  - otterley 13y ago
    To my knowledge, none of them supports multi-dimensional metrics. So I had to cross them off my list.
- TallboyOne 13y ago
  Datadog is very cool. What are some of the other solutions out there that are similar? I like how it mostly just integrates with anything I need, that makes things easy for a non-enterprise-level project.
jlgreco 13y ago
Barrier to entry. Zabbix is "enterprise" out its ass. Graphite, statsd, collectd are small simple systems that you can have mostly figured out in a few minutes. Meanwhile Zabbix's website makes it seem like the sole reason for that project to exist is to sell consulting and training gigs. Datadog seems like it might be slightly better, but I haven't spent much time looking at it.
- golovast 13y ago
  That's not true. Maybe that's the impression it gives off, but it's a very good package that blows Nagios out of the water. It's UI/UX needs work and some things are a bit quirky (to say the least), but it scales well, works quickly out of the box (basic level), has decent and improving API, integrated graphs, etc. It's not perfect and suffers from the same problems as other monitoring systems, but given the options it's better then most systems with similar scope. P.S. I am not affiliated with them in any way shape or form. Just used it for a little while.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Compared with graphite/etc, it absolutely is true. A project is judged against its competition. The things you are talking about (UI, scaling, graphs, etc) are not my concerns with it. I don't doubt that it is "very good", for at least several values of "good", but that is missing the point. Right off the bat, here are differences between barrier to entry (ignoring the "enterprise" stench and consulting/contracting emphasis for the moment): Installation: Graphite: Homepage -> links to pip / github / launchpad Zabbix: Homepage -> Downloads -> Download -> RHEL binaries?!?! -> Oh nevermind, sourceforge link..... Sending metrics to the system: Graphite: Homepage -> documentation -> getting your data into graphite Zabbix: I'll be honest, I just gave up. It just gets worse from there. I don't want to become my companies "Zabbix guy". I want something that I can just get working as rapidly as possible with as little heartache as possible. Particularly heartache that seems suspiciously intentional considering the number of ways you can find yourself on a "hire us to train you!" page on their site... Zabbix reminds me of all the things I hate about working for a PHB who makes technical decisions at large corporations. Maybe that is an unfair take-away, but that take-away is entirely their own fault.
    - mdellabitta 13y ago
      Honestly, it seems to me you gave up pretty easily there.
      - 13y ago

I don't understand this idea that you should build a metrics system from components rather than use one of the end-to-end projects out there like Zabbix. Can someone clue me in?

otterley 13y ago

I don't, either. And Graphite doesn't allow you to tag metrics for easy aggregation, which is a huge win if you're monitoring more than a few instances of a metric. (Nor does Zabbix, BTW.) I'm a reasonably happy Datadog customer.

jacobscott 13y ago
Have you used any other cloud monitoring/metric/etc providers? If so, how do they compare to DataDog?
- otterley 13y ago
  To my knowledge, none of them supports multi-dimensional metrics. So I had to cross them off my list.
TallboyOne 13y ago
Datadog is very cool. What are some of the other solutions out there that are similar? I like how it mostly just integrates with anything I need, that makes things easy for a non-enterprise-level project.

jlgreco 13y ago

Barrier to entry. Zabbix is "enterprise" out its ass. Graphite, statsd, collectd are small simple systems that you can have mostly figured out in a few minutes. Meanwhile Zabbix's website makes it seem like the sole reason for that project to exist is to sell consulting and training gigs. Datadog seems like it might be slightly better, but I haven't spent much time looking at it.

golovast 13y ago
That's not true. Maybe that's the impression it gives off, but it's a very good package that blows Nagios out of the water. It's UI/UX needs work and some things are a bit quirky (to say the least), but it scales well, works quickly out of the box (basic level), has decent and improving API, integrated graphs, etc. It's not perfect and suffers from the same problems as other monitoring systems, but given the options it's better then most systems with similar scope. P.S. I am not affiliated with them in any way shape or form. Just used it for a little while.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Compared with graphite/etc, it absolutely is true. A project is judged against its competition. The things you are talking about (UI, scaling, graphs, etc) are not my concerns with it. I don't doubt that it is "very good", for at least several values of "good", but that is missing the point. Right off the bat, here are differences between barrier to entry (ignoring the "enterprise" stench and consulting/contracting emphasis for the moment): Installation: Graphite: Homepage -> links to pip / github / launchpad Zabbix: Homepage -> Downloads -> Download -> RHEL binaries?!?! -> Oh nevermind, sourceforge link..... Sending metrics to the system: Graphite: Homepage -> documentation -> getting your data into graphite Zabbix: I'll be honest, I just gave up. It just gets worse from there. I don't want to become my companies "Zabbix guy". I want something that I can just get working as rapidly as possible with as little heartache as possible. Particularly heartache that seems suspiciously intentional considering the number of ways you can find yourself on a "hire us to train you!" page on their site... Zabbix reminds me of all the things I hate about working for a PHB who makes technical decisions at large corporations. Maybe that is an unfair take-away, but that take-away is entirely their own fault.
  - mdellabitta 13y ago
    Honestly, it seems to me you gave up pretty easily there.
    - 13y ago