Nagios does have some scalability issues, but for the most part you won't run
into them until you get to truly huge installations.
I can see three main scalability issues: config file maintenance and the need
for one central server, and firewall issues.
Config file maintenance can be improved to some extent with careful design of
the config files, as well as tools. It is an issue that I am running into with
a relatively small installation with 80+ hosts and 400+ services. My
installation is highly heterogeneous and very dynamic, which makes config file
maintenance a nightmare. Having to restart Nagios after a configuration change
doesn't help either. On the other hand, a network with 2000 identical machines
is probably going to be much easier to manage than my type of network.
The central server is an obvious bottleneck. No matter how powerful the machine
and the network connection, there are only so many checks results it can
handle. Fortunately, Nagios doesn't require much horsepower. Distributed
monitoring helps with this issue because the most expensive part of Nagios is
running active checks. With distributed monitoring, the active checks can run
on multiple smaller boxes, and then send the check results back as passive
checks.
Of course distributed monitoring compounds the config file maintenance issue,
because you have to configure each check multiple times.
The third issue is not directly a scalability issue. Nagios is built with the
assumption of a local and mostly trusted network. It's non-trivial to securely
get checks to work on remote machines without pretty gaping poking holes into
firewalls, and/or frequently establishing and tearing down encrypted
connections with the attendant processing load. There are some third-party
solutions for this issue, though.
From: Scott Ward [mailto:13.sward...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 12:34 PM
To: Nagios Users List
Subject: Re: [Nagios-users] Large Installation
>Make sure to read these pages:
>
>http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/tuning.html<http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/tuning.html>
>http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/largeinstalltweaks.html<http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/largeinstalltweaks.html>
>
>Also, if you're monitoring 800 machines across WANs, you might look
>into distributed monitoring:
>http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/distributed.html<http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/distributed.html>
>
>Let us know how it goes!
Thanks for the links. So the distributive monitoring provided by the Nagios
docs can handle what we're trying to do? I have read in a few places that
Nagios has scalability issues.
>
>--Matt
>
>BTW, what are you using for your config maintenance?
We haven't decided yet. Do you have any recommendations?
~S
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 2:23 PM, Matt Simmons
<standalone.sysad...@gmail.com<mailto:standalone.sysad...@gmail.com>> wrote:
Make sure to read these pages:
http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/tuning.html
http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/largeinstalltweaks.html
Also, if you're monitoring 800 machines across WANs, you might look
into distributed monitoring:
http://nagios.sourceforge.net/docs/3_0/distributed.html
Let us know how it goes!
--Matt
BTW, what are you using for your config maintenance?
On Thu, Jun 10, 2010 at 1:51 PM, Scott Ward
<13.sward...@gmail.com<mailto:13.sward...@gmail.com>> wrote:
> We are looking to do an large installation of Nagios. Is it possible to
> monitor over 800 machines and over 14000 services?
>
> Has anyone tried doing anything like this? If you have how successful was it
> and how did you configure it?
>
> ~Rultax
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate
> GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the
> lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win:
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo
> _______________________________________________
> Nagios-users mailing list
> Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
> ::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting
> any issue.
> ::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
>
--
LITTLE GIRL: But which cookie will you eat FIRST?
COOKIE MONSTER: Me think you have misconception of cookie-eating process.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate
GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the
lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win:
http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net<mailto:Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net>
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting
any issue.
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ThinkGeek and WIRED's GeekDad team up for the Ultimate
GeekDad Father's Day Giveaway. ONE MASSIVE PRIZE to the
lucky parental unit. See the prize list and enter to win:
http://p.sf.net/sfu/thinkgeek-promo
_______________________________________________
Nagios-users mailing list
Nagios-users@lists.sourceforge.net
https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/nagios-users
::: Please include Nagios version, plugin version (-v) and OS when reporting
any issue.
::: Messages without supporting info will risk being sent to /dev/null
