We learned how to extend our Zenoss Core monitoring environment with monitoring templates and collect performance data via SNMP and command data sources, including Nagios and Cacti plugins. In the process, we discovered that Zenoss Core leverages the ubiquitous RRDtool to graph time-series data. There's a lot to digest with monitoring templates and modifying your templates provides one of the most powerful customizations in Zenoss Core.

Up to this point we have enough information to discover, monitor, and tune the monitoring properties of our devices. So, in the next two chapters, we focus on events. All that monitoring we're doing, including our dummy bogo device, is generating events in Zenoss Core. It's time we understand what that means.