How Zabbix Powers Home and IT Monitoring: A Chat with “What’s up home” Janne Pikkarainen
Metricio had the privilege of interviewing Janne Pikkarainen, a Zabbix certified professional, and the creative mind behind the popular blog What's Up Home. In his blog, Janne shares brilliant and sometimes wild ideas about the endless possibilities of monitoring with Zabbix. From the practical to the downright ingenious, he proves that with enough imagination, there’s nothing that can’t be monitored. In our interview, Janne shared his thoughts on Zabbix, the future of IT monitoring, the industry and home monitoring, and what inspires his boundary-pushing ideas.
Pictures belongs to Zabbix.
Janne is a big inspiration for us at Metricio and other Zabbix users. You can find and read his blog here!
Janne, a monitoring and Linux guy
Olivia: Welcome Janne, we are very happy at Metricio for this interview. The first question, could you to tell me a little bit about who you are and what's your background and what you do for a living, Janne?
Janne:
- Okay, so I'm Janne from Finland and I've been using computers ever since I was eight years old back in the 80s. For a living I have been over 25 years in the industry already since 1999 and out of that I have been mostly a Linux guy, but of course since I have to know how our Linux servers are doing, I have a place in my heart for monitoring as well. That's me, I'm a monitoring guy and a Linux guy.
Currently I work for Forcepoint. I have been there over 10 years already. We are a cyber security company providing all kinds of security products for the biggest customers you can imagine. I'm a lead site reliability engineer and I've been doing that for the last two and a half years or so, enjoying my role there.
Olivia: Perfect. Could you tell us a bit about how you started with Zabbix and what initially drew you to this platform?
Janne:
- Well, I joined Forcepoint in 2014 and as my then manager heard that I have this monitoring background with Nagios at that point though, my first task at Forcepoint, or back then called Stonesoft of that part of Forcepoint, was to move their monitoring from some very old product to Zabbix. They had already installed Zabbix, but it was still empty, so my task was to then configure it.
- Even to my own surprise, it only took me three days, even though back then Zabbix was a completely new product for me to use. Then I realized how powerful it actually is. In just three days I did not only move the monitoring, but I did actually improve their existing monitoring, of course, since their old product was only doing like ping and trying to open, to check if some port is open, not much more than that.
- It was easy with the Zabbix templates to start monitoring disk space use, network traffic, all that.
No Limits with Zabbix: Insights from Janne Pikkarainen "What's up Home" on Flexibility, Features, and Creativity
Olivia: What's so great about Zabbix?
Janne:
- Many things. First of all, it's very lightweight and stable. I don't even remember when it would have caused me any kind of harm because it would be crashing or something. Not even at my home with the Raspberry Pi, it still seems to stay up. And of course, since it's so flexible, you can do whatever you want with it, as my blog kind of proves.
Olivia: Would you say that it's like with the imagination, you have no limits in Zabbix or would you?
Janne:
- Yes there's pretty much no limits because you can always create your own templates. There's so many ways you can either feed data to Zabbix or it can fetch information with so many ways, HTTP agents, SNMP, shell scripts, whatever you can imagine if it's there.
Olivia: As a Zabbix certified professional, what are some features in Zabbix 7.0 that you feel really stand out?
Janne:
- Compared to older versions, of course, the performance. It's so fast that it runs circles around older versions, not to mention some other monitoring products. Of course, this version also has this fantastic new Selenium-based web monitoring, it elevates it to a completely new level. You get to get those screenshots, how did your website look like at a certain point of time. It shows you all kinds of performance statistics of the web pages. Maybe I like those more. Of course, the improved DNS monitoring is cool as well.
Olivia: Are there any other features that you wish that they have implied in this version?
Janne:
- Yes, if speaking about the future, of course. If Zabbix would be better in log monitoring, that would be cool and useful. Also, the NetFlow is something native support for that I would like to use, but you can't have it completely all natively, but there are still ways to work around all those currently even.
Olivia: How do you handle scaling Zabbix to larger environments?
Janne:
- Well, I would consider our work environment quite large and nowadays I don't have to think about that so much because Zabbix is so fast now. Anyway, the standard stuff like using proxies helps a lot. Maybe not only for the performance standpoint, but if you have data centers all over the world, it would be painful to collect all the data from a single location. It makes sense to have a proxy in some remote location, which then makes the data collection locally. It's just so much faster. But other than that, Zabbix pretty much works in our scale, what we have.
Olivia: What's your process for customizing Zabbix to fit specific use cases? Could you share an example where you have created a unique solution?
Janne:
- Well, I have 104 of those, but the process depends a bit if it's about real-world monitoring or something software-based monitoring. When I monitor the real world, I first must figure out how to do that. Like my first previous switch started it all, or the case if the dog was in her bed, then I have to first come up with a way how to do it. And then when I get a sensor to work, the rest is just figuring out how to send the sensor data to Zabbix. Like with the Ruvitac Bluetooth beacon, there's a command line tool for that, which has native support for Ruvitac, so it's easy to use that. If I want to monitor something software-based, like some new website or something, then I will check if there's an API that I can use. If not, then I will just parse the contents of a webpage, like in some recent example in my blog, I'm actually showing how to do it.
Olivia: How do you find motivation for creating content to your blog?
Janne:
- Oh, I enjoy doing it very much now, now that I have quite a few readers and I get some feedback and Zabbix, many Zabbix users and Zabbix loves me for my blog. That's something I'm going to continue to do, not only to be famous or something, but because that way I kind of motivate myself to create new content and new ideas. I don't want to become boring.
Olivia: Where can people find your blog? Can you find it linked on your LinkedIn profile?
Janne:
- Yes and you can find it at What's up home.fi. Sometimes also from official Zabbix blogs. They keep on posting my stuff every now and then, so then there's of course links to my blog there and I believe it's easy to find with search engines as well. Even ChatGPD seems to know me.
Creative and Cost-Saving: How Janne Pikkarainen Uses Zabbix to Monitor Everything
Olivia; What's the most unusual or creative way you have used Zabbix monitoring?
Janne:
- That's hard to say. Maybe the face-moisturize lotion case, because that really stood out like in the way that even the Zabbix employees were like, hey, come on, come, guys, come look at this. This guy is doing something really strange. Maybe what else would be there? Oh, maybe monitoring the battery level of my shaver based on audio frequency. That was fun.
Olivia: And you have a lot of also other creative ways on your blog that you share.
Do you have any Zabbix like pet fees, features or quirks that you think would be improved?
Janne:
- Oh, yes. There's those forgotten dark corners here and there around Zabbix.
- Few comes to mind, inventory, like I would love to add custom fields and maybe the user interface of the inventory could take some love. Then the discovery, while it works, it shows that the discovery function was created quite a long time ago. It's powerful, but at least over the user interface, it can be tough to use compared to the rest of the pieces of Zabbix that have already been seen some user interface refresh.
Olivia: You have written about how you can use like Zabbix at home that we have mentioned earlier, in your blog, like you can monitor everything in like your iWatch, iPhone batteries, like you said. Could you tell us a bit how private individuals can benefit from using Zabbix?
Janne:
- Well, of course, monitoring your home provides you kind of peace of mind, because then you get alerts if something bad happens at your home. Your door opens when you are not at home, that's a bad sign. There's smoke in your home, that's a bad sign. Your freezer gets warm, that's a bad sign. So you can, by implementing Zabbix at home monitor all that. Like Android, other benefit of it is, like I mentioned in my very first Zabbix Summit speech in 2022, is that usually you have like 10 different user interfaces. You have your mobile apps, you have your websites for your devices, you have so many different places where you have to go and configure. But with Zabbix, you get to see everything from one place and even configure if the device is something that you can somehow configure.
Olivia: Could it like help you decrease costs by using Zabbix and when you have control on your devices at home?
Janne:
- Absolutely. For example, like everybody reading my blog knows that I have Cozify at home. Cozify is an IoT hub, which can connect the different kind of IoT devices from different vendors to work together. It works there, but it has its limitations when it comes to its user interface. With those, you can improve with Zabbix. You get proper reporting, so you get to see how many hours your lights have been on, if the heater in your garage has been on and off. For example, now that winter is coming, if there's this heater in our garage you could benefit from monitor it and the price scale. If the electricity price, for example, would go high enough, then it's easy for you to know when to not heating it anymore until the price will drop. It makes no sense to heat it with the two kilowatt battery if the electricity would be like one euro or more per kilowatt hour.
Olivia: Would you say that it's like easy for an unexperienced person to use like Zabbix as a monitoring tool?
Janne:
- Well, if you are a complete novice when it comes to monitoring, then of course the concept itself is something you have to learn no matter what tool you use. Then you have to learn from scratch, and if you're coming from some other product, you first have to learn the Zabbix terms. What's an item, what's a host, what's a template, all those for example, but after you figure those out, then it's not that hard to use. What I like about Zabbix is that it's so fast. Compared to some other products where you must wait and wait and wait after you click something. I can't stand those anymore after Zabbix where everything is instant.
Olivia: Could you tell me a little bit more about the blog? Why did you start it? What was the reason you started it and how has it developed?
Janne:
- The reason I started it, at first to only write it kind of to myself. But how I started this whole monitoring thing was because maybe during the dusting or something, my wife had accidentally turned off our freezer because there's a power button in the door of the freezer. We only noticed that after several days, then we had to throw away all that food. At that point, I realized that why not set up Zabbix at home. First, it was just a virtual machine on my Mac. I did download the Zabbix appliance thing and then run it on VirtualBox. But then I soon realized that, okay, this is going to be a permanent thing. Then I did buy Raspberry Pi and it's been running on that since March or April 2022. No issues. That's why I started my blog, and then things escalated a little bit after Zabbix, the company, noticed me.
Olivia: What's the best part about doing this blog?
Janne:
- Well, it keeps me creative. I learn new things and actually many of the things I have done for my blog, I have used them at work as well in different contexts, but still using them. Whatever features I come up with that benefits us all. I like how Forcepoint also loves my blog, and I get to use some of my time for that too.
Tips and Insights for Zabbix and First-Time Users: Janne Pikkarainen on the Present and Future of Zabbix
Olivia: On a scale of one to ten, how often do you find yourself talking about Zabbix at like social gatherings?
Janne:
- Eleven. No, not at social gatherings that much. It depends on the people who I'm with. If they are technical guys, of course I might speak about Zabbix. Or actually now if I go to our Helsinki office, people will start speaking about Zabbix to me. Sometimes about my blog, sometimes about actual work monitoring. But then, of course, if I'm out with my wife and her friends, no Zabbix speak. It makes no sense to speak to non-technical people about that.
Olivia Don't you feel that you want to talk more avout Zabbix sometimes then?
Janne:
- Yes, of course. Then they also would knew how good Zabbix is. If we, for example, would visit some of our friends who apparently would need it for something without them realizing it, then I'm almost like, oh, come on, let me set up Zabbix for you. But I'm not there yet. Maybe one day.
Olivia: What do you see as the future for Zabbix and Monitor in general? Are there any trends that you're excited about or do you think that companies have to look after?
Janne:
- I would be boring and like all the other guys in the world, if I would say AI here. Of course, it's becoming part of our daily lives in one form or another. That's something that will come. But I hope that on top of AI, real-world monitoring would start to get used more and more. Like in the last Zabbix summit, there were multiple examples of real-world monitoring from mining companies to public transport.
We are progressing and Zabbix works great for all kinds of real-world examples as well, like that International Space Station example on Zabbix blog.
Olivia: Do you see Zabbix taking a bigger place in the future or do you see that other systems and programs are more likely to keep having the same or bigger market share?
Janne:
- Well there are areas where Zabbix continues to shine unless others jump in the same bandwagon. For example, Zabbix really is the king of the hardware monitoring, traditional on-premise hardware, all that, with its pre-made templates for almost any server hardware. You usually have networking devices that are very well supported, all kinds of UPS systems, everything. So many other monitoring or observability solutions seem to be cloud-native. They want to monitor your cloud, they want to monitor your applications in some way, but Zabbix has its strengths in real-world monitoring and hardware monitoring, especially in my opinion.
Olivia: Do you have any advice for those who just started with Zabbix or considering certification in Zabbix?
Janne:
- Don't get overwhelmed when you first open it. There might be many buttons and menus where you can go, but don't panic. It will be well. Go to Zabbix's YouTube channel, check their videos or read tutorials, whatever is your favorite way to learn new things, and then just start doing it. Soon enough you will find out that it's actually pretty smart and easy to use. For certifications, learn first how to use Zabbix before you enter exams, because they can be tough. Go to courses.
Olivia: If you could go back to your early Zabbix days, what is one tip that you wish you had known then?
Janne:
- Interesting question. The power of templates, maybe. I first thought that, okay, these are just some basic stuff, but then it took me a while before I started investigating how to create my own templates, and then I had some light bulb turning on on top of my head. Hey, I'm going to create these templates.
From Zabbix to the Skies: Janne Pikkarainen's Passion for Tech and Flying
Olivia: Last question, what's one fun fact about you that has nothing to do with Zabbix or tech?
Janne:
- I would like to be a personal pilot, so I love flying. I have also jumped out from an airplane, parachuted. I have done bungee jumps, so yeah, if I would have time and money on my own airplane and everything. If I would have chosen my career in other ways, not going to the United States, then I would be flying. , I would be a personal pilot, probably.
Olivia: Thank you so much for taking the time to share more about you and your blog Janne. Thank you also for all the Zabbix inspiration on your blog and sharing your thought about Zabbix and the future.
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