Discover how ATS designed and implemented a custom Zabbix solution to empower a large managed service provider to monitor and manage a vast array of client devices across multiple data centers.
The Challenge
Addressing Infrastructure Monitoring Complexities
When a federal government contractor specializing in IT Managed Services secured a contract to manage the infrastructure for a large federal agency, they faced a daunting challenge: how to effectively monitor and manage the vast array of devices under their purview using a single, comprehensive solution.
Real-time monitoring and immediate alerts for any issues were non-negotiable requirements. The sheer scale and complexity of the infrastructure demanded a robust monitoring system capable of providing insights across multiple data centers and diverse technologies.
The managed services provider, aware of the need for a trusted and experienced partner, turned to its longtime ally, ATS Group, to tackle the complexities of its observability and management challenge.
The Solution
Architecting a Custom Zabbix Solution
ATS Group, North America’s exclusive Zabbix Premium Partner, brings over two decades of experience in monitoring and optimizing enterprise IT environments. ATS Group architected and implemented a custom solution that leveraged Zabbix’s flexibility and scalability, demonstrating their deep knowledge of the technology and ability to handle complex challenges.
The ATS team deployed an on-premises Zabbix Server, accompanied by Zabbix Proxy Servers placed in each data center. This distributed architecture was a key factor in ensuring seamless monitoring across geographically dispersed environments while minimizing latency, a critical factor in managing such a vast infrastructure.
Custom Zabbix Solutions delivered by ATS Group
From there, ATS implemented various Zabbix customizations that were integral to meeting the agency’s unique and diverse infrastructure needs, including developing templates and integrations.
- Templates: ATS developed numerous templates covering a broad spectrum of technologies (including OpenShift, VMware, Dell, HP, Cisco UCS, Hitachi, NetApp, Pure, Brocade, Commvault, Linux, and Windows) to provide comprehensive monitoring capabilities tailored to the specifics of each component, ensuring a detailed view of the entire infrastructure stack.
- Integrations: ATS built customized integrations for several third-party products. An integration with OpenShift allowed for alerts configured within OpenShift to be directly ingested and processed by Zabbix. The integration with VMware allowed Zabbix to detect when an administrator put a Host in maintenance in VMware, automatically creating a maintenance period for that Host within Zabbix to eliminate unwanted alerts while the Host was being serviced. Finally, integrations with ServiceNow and Operations Bridge Manager (OBM) enabled streamlined incident management workflows, ensuring that issues were promptly detected, triaged, and addressed with minimal manual intervention – and the proper stakeholders were notified within the customer and service provider organizations.
- Trigger Actions: ATS implemented custom trigger actions to automate responses to predefined events. Whether restarting a service upon failure or executing remediation scripts, these trigger actions helped maintain system stability, minimize downtime, and reduce the workload (and callouts in the middle of the night!) for system administrators.
- Dashboards: ATS designed custom dashboards to provide stakeholders with intuitive, real-time insights into the infrastructure’s health and performance. These dashboards served as a centralized hub, offering a comprehensive view of the entire environment with actionable insights to drive informed decision-making.
The Results
A custom Zabbix solution delivers visibility, streamlined monitoring, proactive management, and enhanced client satisfaction
The impact of the custom Zabbix solution was immediate and profound. By leveraging the power of Zabbix and the expert skill of the ATS team, the managed services provider gained unprecedented visibility and control over their client’s sprawling infrastructure. The benefits included:
- Greater Operational Efficiency: With a unified view of the entire infrastructure and real-time alerts for any issues, our client experienced a significant improvement in operational efficiency. Proactive management and automated responses minimized downtime, allowing resources to be allocated more strategically.
- Faster Incident Response: Issues were detected instantaneously, and relevant stakeholders were promptly alerted, enabling swift resolution and minimizing the impact on operations. This streamlined incident response mechanism reduced mean time to resolution (MTTR) and enhanced overall system reliability.
- Increased Revenue: Delighted by the efficiency and effectiveness of our client’s management and monitoring capabilities, the end-user federal agency recognized the value of their partnership and expanded the scope of the contract.
This testament to our client’s success underscores the transformative impact of our solution, paving the way for further collaboration and growth opportunities. As a result, ATS Group and the managed services provider continue to expand their partnership and are solving complex infrastructure problems for numerous additional clients.
