After seeing Zabbix at VMware Explore for years, I decided it was time to finally spend some quality time with this well-regarded, scalable, and free open-source monitoring solution. It's a powerful platform used by a wide range of organizations, from home lab enthusiasts to Fortune 500 companies, to track the performance and availability of their IT infrastructure. Zabbix offers impressive flexibility, supporting both agent-based and agentless monitoring via protocols such as SNMP, IPMI, and JMX for servers, networks, applications, and cloud services.

My own hands-on experience began with the server installation, which was remarkably straightforward. Heeding Zabbix's claim that it can be installed in 10 minutes, I used a readily available VMware appliance and had it up and running quickly. However, the appliance is not recommended for serious production use. From there, I successfully added agents to both my Windows and Linux systems, a process I also found to be very easy. This quickly allowed me to start monitoring key performance metrics such as CPU usage, memory utilization, disk space, and network throughput via Zabbix's intuitive web interface.

My initial impression is very positive; Zabbix proved to be easy and intuitive for basic system monitoring, though I know I've only scratched the surface of its capabilities. I look forward to exploring its more advanced features, such as alerting and automation, in the future.

This podcast is based on three articles that I wrote for Virtualization and Cloud Review, which you can read at ⁠

https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2025/05/13/zabbix-an-open-source-monitoring-solution.aspx

https://virtualizationreview.com/Articles/2025/05/19/Monitoring-Windows-and-Linux-Systems-Using-Open-Source-Zabbix.aspx

https://virtualizationreview.com/Articles/2025/05/15/Installing-Zabbix-an-Open-Source-Monitoring-Solution.aspx

This podcast is about Edit on Windows, an upcoming official command-line text editor from Microsoft that fulfills a long-desired feature for developers and system administrators. This new tool allows users to edit files directly in the command line, streamlining workflows and reducing context switching, which is crucial for efficiency. While the initial release is basic compared to third-party options like Vim, I do like its open-source nature and I anticipate future functional growth, making it a valuable integrated option for systems where downloading external tools is inconvenient. The podcastdetails the current process for installing the preview version from GitHub and highlights the new editor's powerful search capabilities using regular expressions (Regex).

This podcast is based on an article that I wrote for Virtualization and Cloud Review, which you can read at ⁠https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2025/05/13/zabbix-an-open-source-monitoring-solution.aspx

In this podcast, I highlight the unique value of the Project Pavilion at KubeCon, where attendees can engage directly with the developers and maintainers behind open-source CNCF projects.

This area presents a unique opportunity to experience emerging technologies firsthand, pose in-depth technical questions to developers, and explore innovative tools before they gain mainstream attention.

Pavilion is not just for developers—it’s a must-visit for anyone wanting to understand the future direction of cloud-native computing and the vibrant open-source community driving it forward.

You can read the entire article at https://virtualizationreview.com/articles/2025/10/16/why-you-need-to-visit-kubecons-project-pavilion.aspx