Without a doubt, default templates are the villains. Surprised?
So far, we have talked about the characteristics of items and triggers, and how small adjustments (collection times, retention time, data types, function triggers, and so on) can save a Zabbix deployment from failure.
How do Zabbix's standard templates come to us? Have you stopped to think whether they are designed with the best practices for a production environment in mind? Many Zabbix users start using the software without this in mind and end up compromising the success of Zabbix in their environments.
Here's what should we know, and most likely change, before starting to use Zabbix:
- Default templates and items:
- The update intervals are very short and do not consider the requirements of each environment
- The retention times are standardized for all items (90 days for history and 365 days for trends), and it is certainly not necessary for the retention time for all items to be the same
- Zabbix's default templates don't use user macros
- Default templates and triggers:
The conclusion is that the standard templates of Zabbix are easy to use, especially when we are starting an implementation of Zabbix and we need speed so that the environment can be set up quickly. However, these templates are a trap, and problems begin to emerge a few months (or weeks) after we have started working with Zabbix. So, we should not use the default templates in a production environment. Some of you will ask: why does Zabbix SIA provide these templates if they should not be used? The answer is simple: so that we can have a fast start as a proof of concept or testing with the platform.