Zenoss ZenTech Community

Subject:	RE: Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Jane Curry
Posted:	2018-10-03 15:01

Please see my inserts...

I am considering upgrading our company's Zenoss to the latest (6.2) from 4.2.5.Please see my inserts....

There are still a few key questions I'm trying to get an answer on before we decide on this which I couldn't find in the docs or elsewhere online.

What's the license for Zenoss Core? Wikipedia says it is GPL 2 but I can't find the source for this.

I understand that there are now a few elements of Zenoss 6 that not open source - a lot is but not all of it. I would hope that Zenoss might post a definitive answer to your licensing question - @John ??

We've been using Zenoss core with several thousand devices. The Zenoss 6 scheme seems to suggest that Zenoss core is limited to 500 devices only. What happens if we cross that? Will it give an annoying warning or will it flat-out fail?

I don't believe there is anything in the code of Core that will stop things working at a certain number of devices. That said, you should expect 6 to use an order of magnitude more resource than 4.2.5.

As per this discussion, ( my comments in there still hold - @Jane ) automatic data migration from < 5 to 5+ is practically impossible. Is there any update on this or should I still consider it impossible?

Not impossible but certainly no defined process - see comments in referenced discussion.

We are currently using ZendMD extensively for things like device and location modelling.
This wiki says: "[ZendMD] should be run as the zenoss user, in the zope container (for Zenoss 5 folk)"
So I just hook to the zope docker container, su to zenoss user and run zendmd as I always do?
Has there been significant API changes to ZendMD since? Any release notes (I can't seem to find these things)?

zendmd has always been a bit of an undocumented black art! I don't believe it has changed significantly. As you suggest, you need to attach to the zope container and then run zendmd. Be aware that there are LOTS of other things that become similarly hard with 6 - like running commands from templates, adding pre-req code, creating and maintaining ZenPacks, to name but a few.

I would also appreciate any other tips or gotchas I should look out for when upgrading to Zenoss 6

Jad Baz, 10-03-2018 05:58 AM

Cheers,
Jane

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Jane Curry
Skills 1st United Kingdom
jane.curry@skills-1st.co.uk
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Subject:	RE: Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Jad Baz
Posted:	2018-10-03 17:06

^{Thank you @Jane}

Subject:	RE: Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Serge VS
Posted:	2018-10-04 17:26

Completely agreed.

And there is another important point - the maintenance ( zenpacks and zenoss patching, backup/restore procedures )

I'm not sure about what management of Zenoss is thinking but from my point of view upgrade from Zenoss Core 4.x can costs for a company more than switching tp another modern monitoring solution ...

@Jad - you can try https://github.com/sergevs/ansible-serviced-zenoss

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Serge
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Subject:	RE: Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Jad Baz
Posted:	2018-10-05 10:47

Thank you Serge, this is exactly how I'm currently doing it, with this Ansible script.

I just want to clarify that I did not at all mean upgrading an existing server in-place. I know that's practically impossible. Instead I'll make a new server.
I'm interested in data migration.
Specifically:

Events
- Event archive
- Event classes
Triggers

Triggers
Notifications

Reports
Settings
- Settings
  - Commands
  - Users
- Monitoring templates

If I was migrating between 2 Zenoss 4 instances, it's a one-button backup and then restore.
Are there any tools/scripts available to export/import the above that would make my life easier instead of:

Manual entry
api export to file then api import from file
Diving into complex db data
Banging my head against ZendMD

Thank you

Subject:	RE: Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Jane Curry
Posted:	2018-10-06 05:27

Hmm. Most of these are the hard ones - except monitoring templates. I have had good success creating a "migration ZenPack" and adding the monitoring templates I want to that in the old system and then installing on the new. Do ensure if any templates need datasource types from dependent ZenPacks, that those ZPs are installed first on the new system. Commands also have an "Add to ZenPack" button - don't think I have ever used it for a migration ZenPack but it should work.

Users are easier if you have LDAP integration - once you get the LDAP integration working on the new system.

Triggers and notifications are a pig because they are partly in the zope database and partly in zep. You might just pull my audit package from github - https://github.com/jcurry/Audit . It dumps out to text files lots of elements of Zenoss, including triggers and notifications. You might manage to use that to help you with some sort of import function too?

Cheers,
Jane

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Jane Curry
Skills 1st United Kingdom
jane.curry@skills-1st.co.uk
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Subject:	Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6
Author:	Jad Baz
Posted:	2018-10-03 05:59

Key questions to consider upgrading from Zenoss 4 to 6