Project goals

The goal of the project was to implement an integration service that adjusted Zabbix platform according to current data from the CMDB. The modification consisted in the structuring of objects in Zabbix platform according to their type and individual divisions of ČEZ a.s.

Subsequently, create dashboards for an overview of technical and business metrics and data.

Realization

The project started with a thorough analysis of the current state of Zabbix platform and CMDB in cooperation with customer in order to find the optimal solution for their integration.

After analysis, it was necessary to choose a suitable method of transferring and processing CMDB data.

During implementation, we encountered technical limitations of Grafana platform. For that reason, it was necessary to proceed to another way of modifying Zabbix platform so that the required data could be displayed. Zabbix's standard approach to sorting objects using tagging was unusable in combination with Grafana, so we chose an alternative method and sorted objects into individual groups.

Implementation steps

• Finding the appropriate CMDB data format for processing by the integration service
• Implementation of an integration service using the Ansible tool, which sorts individual objects in Zabbix platform according to CMDB data.
• The Openshift environment was chosen to run the integration service
• Creation and optimization of technical dashboards
• Creation and optimization of management dashboards
• Setting access restrictions to individual dashboards

Project results

The result of the project was the creation of an integration service that regularly and automatically updates Zabbix platform according to current data from the CMDB. This system made monitoring management more efficient, as any change is automatically reflected in monitoring platform and related dashboards.

Technical dashboards now allow the customer to effectively monitor individual platforms and respond immediately to problems that arise. Management dashboards provide a comprehensive overview of the infrastructure, its use, and thus enable better optimization of the entire infrastructure.

Thanks to this project, ČEZ a.s. managed to significantly improve the efficiency and accuracy of monitoring, which contributes to better management and optimization of their IT infrastructure.