Monitoring Vectra with Zabbix

Monitor Brain and Sensor health with Zabbix checks and dashboards.

Monitoring its Vectra deployment is critical to ensure that the solution is working as expected. There are many solutions available to enterprises to monitor their infrastructure. Zabbix is one of the most popular open-source projects.

Overview

This knowledge base article outlines the use of Zabbix templates specifically designed for monitoring the Vectra Platform using HTTP Agent in Zabbix version 6.4. The monitoring solution comprises two templates: Vectra Detect and Vectra Sensor. These templates have been tested on Vectra Quadrant UX Platform versions 7.x and 8.x, across various form-factors including X29, X80, B101, AWS, and vmware. The API, rather than SNMP, is utilized for monitoring the Vectra Platform. To gather health information of the Brain and all sensors, querying the Vectra Brain is sufficient. Communication is restricted to between the Zabbix server and the Vectra Brain over port 443.

Important Note

• The template has not been validated for the Vectra Respond UX platform. The primary differences are in the authentication method (oauth2) and the API URL Path.

About Zabbix

Zabbix is a powerful monitoring tool used in IT environments. Here are some of its key benefits:

1. Comprehensive Monitoring: Zabbix can monitor networks, servers, virtual machines, and cloud services, ensuring a broad coverage of IT infrastructure.

2. High Flexibility and Customizability: It offers a high degree of customization, allowing users to tailor monitoring to specific needs. This includes creating custom metrics, alerts, and dashboards.

3. Real-Time Data and Visualization: Provides real-time data on IT environment health and performance. The data visualization through graphs, charts, and maps makes it easier to understand and analyze metrics.

4. Proactive Problem Detection and Alerting: Zabbix can predict trends and perform automatic actions. It sends notifications and alerts for any anomalies or performance issues, enabling proactive problem resolution.

5. Scalability: Suitable for small to large environments, Zabbix can scale to monitor thousands of devices.

6. Open Source and Cost-Effective: As an open-source solution, it is free to use, which can significantly reduce costs compared to other commercial monitoring tools.

7. Strong Community Support: A robust community and extensive documentation help users troubleshoot issues and enhance their monitoring setup.

To monitor your Vectra deployment, a Health API endpoint is available. A single API request can fetch the status of both the brain and all sensors. This simplicity in implementation comes from Zabbix needing to access only the Brain API, eliminating the need for querying each sensor individually.

Setup Instructions

• Import the template into Zabbix following basic template importing guidelines.

• Create a host for Vectra Brain and link the template. It utilizes two macros:

  • {$API_KEY} for the Vectra API key.

  • {$HOST} for the Vectra Brain Hostname or IP address.

• Required permission in the role: View > Health.

Discovery Rules

Vectra Detect

• Employs a Low-Level Discovery (LLD) rule to identify sensors connected to a Brain.

• Host prototype rule is used to discover each sensor, add as a new host, and apply the Vectra Sensor template.

• Passes macros SENSORNAME, SENSORSN, and SENSORLUID to the host.

Vectra Sensor

• Uses an LLD rule to identify available interfaces on a sensor.

Items Collected

Vectra Detect

• Various items are gathered using the Health API endpoint, focusing on different aspects of the Vectra Brain's health and performance.

• Items include CPU stats, Disk usage, Memory usage, Network interface status, Sensor connectivity, and Traffic stats.

• Certain items, specific to the Vectra Brain's form-factor, may need to be deactivated.

Vectra Sensor

• Similar to Vectra Detect, it gathers data using the Health API endpoint.

• Items focus on interface status and traffic metrics for each sensor.

Triggers

• Associated with the collected items to alert for any anomalies.

Graphs

• Vectra Detect: Graphs for CPU, Disk usage, and Aggregated Peak Traffic.

• Vectra Sensor: Graphs for Peak Traffic per interface.

Templates and detailed information are available in our Github: https://github.com/vectranetworks/Zabbix_templates