For this all we need is a running Zabbix installation. We don't need to have performance issues but if you have them, I hope we can solve them with our guidelines and tips.

When you install Zabbix, make sure you always have the latest version of Zabbix. Each version released over the years has had major improvements; so it's very useful to update for performance considerations if not for the new features.

Upgrade your database! It doesn't matter if you run on PostgreSQL or MySQL or anything else. Databases improve and especially for MySQL, major improvements were made in the latest versions and for PostgreSQL since 8.x version. Don't stay with the version that comes with your distribution. Also MariaDB an or PerconaDB could be good alternatives. Of course always check if the version is supported by Zabbix.

If possible, buy Solid-state Drive (SSD) drives for the database. This will increase the NVPS dramatically that Zabbix can write into the database. If SSD is still too slow for your set up, try PCIe SSD disk if you can afford the price tag that comes with it.

Check your items interval and make sure you don't check every 30 seconds where you don't need to check. Remember Zabbix will put everything in a database. Checking too aggressively can not only bring down your Zabbix server but also your hosts. For example, checking all ports on a switch every 30 seconds for all parameters won't do much good to your Zabbix server and especially to your switch.

The number of items you monitor can also be an issue if you monitor too many things. It will take up resources that you can use for other items.

Remember points 4 and 5 and then look at the templates and delete or disable all items you don't need and change the intervals. Standard templates in Zabbix are mostly ok for small setups but too aggressive to be useful in larger environments.

Make use of proxies where it's possible to take away some load of the database. Remember the proxy will collect all data and then send it in one batch to the Zabbix server or the Zabbix server will collect it every x number of seconds. Proxies will also do other tasks such as SNMP and IPMI monitoring. (https://www.zabbix.com/documentation/2.4/manual/distributed_monitoring/proxies).

Make use of active items as much as possible. Remember the Zabbix server will contact agents to ask for the data in case of passive agents. Making use of an active agent will take this load away as the active agent collects all data and sends it to the Zabbix server. The active agent also has a buffer, so data will be sent in big blocks reducing the write jobs to the database.

Making use of a dedicated database server can also be a huge advantage as the disks will be dedicated to the database only.

Avoid Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) 3,4,5, and 6 for your databases! RAID 1+ 0 is probably a good choice but expensive. Also stay away from software raid and make use of battery-backed RAID controllers.

Do some database tweaking. The standard configuration of your database is not made for optimal performance and is different for each setup. There are some handy tools that can tweak your database such as MySQLTuner-perl or PgTune. Check the See also section of this recipe for links to those tools.

Tune Apache just as you tuned your database. Don't know where to start? Take a look in the See also section where I have added a few URLs to get you started.

Add lots of RAM; the more RAM you have the better. It would be perfect if the database fits in your RAM).

Another solution used in bigger setups is making use of database partitioning. This way historical data can be split up, for example, per month instead of keeping everything in one big table. This makes looking up data more quick, also backing up will be faster as we only have to back up the latest data. For information on how to do this, look at www.zabbix.org. Here you will find some guides on how to partition your PostgreSQL or MySQL database.

Check housekeeper; make sure it's not busy all the time or removing too much data for a long period.

Tune your templates, don't gather data every 10 seconds on every item and don't keep data longer then needed in the history and trends database.

Triggers with min, max, and avg are slower than last() and nodata() functions as Zabbix needs to calculate this data. Avoid them if not needed.

Polling data by SNMP, agent less or passive agents is slower compared to traps and active agents.

Text and string data types are slower to process than numeric data types.