Zabbix 7.0 LTS is Almost Here: A Deep Dive into the Next Generation of Monitoring

Good morning everyone, Dimitri Bellini here from the Quadrata channel! It’s fantastic to have you back on my corner of the internet dedicated to the world of open source and IT. First off, a huge thank you – we’ve recently crossed the 800 subscriber mark, which is amazing! My goal is to hit 1000 this year, so if you haven’t already, please consider subscribing!

This week, we’re diving into something truly exciting: the upcoming release of Zabbix 7.0. It’s just around the corner, and while we wait for the final release, the Release Candidate 1 already packs all the features we expect to see. So, let’s explore what makes this version so special.

Why Zabbix 7.0 LTS is a Game Changer

Zabbix 7.0 isn’t just another update; it’s an LTS (Long Term Support) version. This is crucial because LTS releases are designed for stability and longevity, typically receiving support for three years (extendable to five for security). This makes them the ideal choice for production environments where reliability and long-term planning are paramount. Updating complex systems isn’t always easy, so an LTS version provides that much-needed stability.

The previous LTS, version 6.0, was released back in February 2022. While the usual cycle is about 1.5 years between LTS versions, 7.0 took a bit longer. This extended development time was necessary to incorporate significant changes, both under the hood and in terms of user-facing features. Trust me, the wait seems worth it!

Don’t panic if you’re on 6.0 – full support continues until February 28, 2025. You have ample time to plan your migration. In fact, I often suggest waiting for a few minor point releases (like 7.0.3 or 7.0.5) to let the dust settle before deploying in critical environments.

Bridging the Gap: Key Enhancements Since Zabbix 6.0

Since many users stick with LTS versions in production and might have skipped the intermediate 6.2 and 6.4 releases, I want to cover the major improvements introduced between 6.0 and 7.0. There’s a lot to unpack!

Performance, Scalability, and Architecture Boosts

• Automatic Configuration Sync (Server-Proxy-Agent): This is huge! Previously, configuration changes on the GUI could take time (often a minute or more by default) to propagate through the server, proxies, and agents due to database polling cycles. Now, changes trigger near-instantaneous updates across the chain using a differential sync mechanism. This means faster deployments of new hosts and checks, and less load as only the *changes* are pushed.
• SNMP Bulk Monitoring: Instead of multiple individual `get` requests, Zabbix can now group SNMP requests, reducing load on both the Zabbix server and the monitored devices.
• Asynchronous Polling: Passive checks (SNMP, HTTP, Zabbix agent passive) are now asynchronous. The server sends the request and moves on, processing the data as it arrives. This significantly improves scalability, especially for large environments.
• Proxy High Availability (HA) and Load Balancing: Finally! You can group proxies together for automatic failover and load balancing. If a proxy in the group fails, its assigned hosts are automatically redistributed to other available proxies in the group. We’ll look at a demo of this shortly!
• Customizable Item Timeouts: The previous global 30-second timeout limit is gone. Now you can set timeouts per item (up to 10 minutes), providing flexibility for checks that naturally take longer.
• Proxy Backward Compatibility: Upgrading is now less stressful. A Zabbix 7.0 server can work with 6.0 proxies in an “outdated” state. They’ll continue sending data and executing remote commands, giving you time to upgrade the proxies without a complete “big bang” cutover. Configuration updates for hosts on outdated proxies won’t work, however.

Enhanced Integrations and User Management

• LDAP/AD Just-in-Time (JIT) User Provisioning: A highly requested feature for enterprise environments. Zabbix can now automatically create and update user accounts based on your Active Directory or LDAP server upon their first login. You can map attributes like email and phone numbers, and even assign Zabbix roles based on AD/LDAP groups. Plus, support for multiple LDAP servers is included.
• Expanded Vault Support: Alongside HashiCorp Vault, Zabbix 7.0 now integrates with CyberArk for external secret management.
• Real-time Data Streaming: Push metrics and events efficiently to external systems like Kafka or Splunk. Crucially, you can filter what gets sent based on tags (e.g., send only high-priority events, or only network-related metrics), allowing for sophisticated data routing to different data lakes or analysis tools.

Improved Monitoring & User Experience

• Advanced Web Monitoring with Selenium: This is potentially revolutionary for Zabbix. The web monitoring capabilities have been rebuilt using Selenium, allowing you to simulate real user interactions (clicking buttons, filling forms) and monitor user experience, page performance, and functionality directly within Zabbix.
• Manual Problem Suppression: Acknowledge known issues or problems occurring during maintenance windows by suppressing them temporarily (indefinitely or for a defined period). They’ll reappear if the issue persists after the suppression window.
• Clearer Agent Availability: The agent availability status is now more intuitive, incorporating a heartbeat mechanism to clearly show if an agent (active or passive) is truly up and running. The corresponding dashboard widget has also been revamped.
• UI and Template Upgrades: Continuous improvements to the graphical interface, new widgets (like improved pie charts/gauges), and significantly enhanced templates, especially for VMware, AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud monitoring.
• OS Prototype Functionality Extension: More flexibility in managing discovered hosts, including adding templates and tags more easily.

Hands-On: Exploring Proxy High Availability (Demo Recap)

I set up a quick Docker environment with a Zabbix 7.0 RC1 server and three proxies to test the new Proxy HA feature. Here’s a summary of how it works:

1. Create a Proxy Group: Under `Administration -> Proxy groups`, define a group (e.g., “MyHAProxies”). Set the `Failover period` (how quickly hosts move after a proxy failure – I used 1 minute for the demo) and the `Minimum available proxies` (the minimum number needed for the group to be considered operational).
2. Assign Proxies to the Group: Edit each proxy you want in the group (`Administration -> Proxies`) and assign it to the created Proxy Group. You also need to specify the proxy address for active agents, as agent configuration changes with this feature.
3. Assign Hosts to the Proxy Group: When configuring a host, instead of selecting a specific proxy, select the Proxy Group. Zabbix automatically assigns the host to the least loaded proxy within that group initially.
4. Simulate Failure: I stopped one of the proxy containers.
5. Observe Failover: After the configured failover period (1 minute), Zabbix detected the proxy was down. The hosts monitored by that proxy were automatically redistributed among the remaining two active proxies in the group. Crucially, checking the `Latest data` for a moved host showed minimal interruption in data collection.
6. Recovery: When I restarted the stopped proxy, Zabbix detected it coming back online. After a stabilisation period (to avoid flapping), it automatically started rebalancing the hosts back across all three proxies.
7. Monitoring the Group: A new internal item `zabbix[proxy_group,,state]` allows you to monitor the health of the proxy group itself (e.g., online, degraded). This is essential for alerting! (Note: I’ve asked the Zabbix team to add this to the default server health template).

This feature significantly enhances the resilience of your Zabbix monitoring infrastructure, especially in distributed environments.

Planning Your Upgrade to Zabbix 7.0

Upgrading requires careful planning. Here’s a checklist:

• Read the Release Notes: Understand all the new features and changes.
• Check Requirements: Ensure your OS, database, and library versions meet the new requirements for Zabbix 7.0. You might need to upgrade your underlying infrastructure (e.g., moving from RHEL 7 to RHEL 8 or 9).
• Review Breaking Changes & Known Issues: The official Zabbix documentation has sections dedicated to these. Pay close attention to avoid surprises.
• CRITICAL: Primary Keys: Zabbix 6.0 introduced optional primary keys for history tables. If you upgraded from 5.x to 6.x and didn’t manually add them (it could be a slow process), **now is the time**. While Zabbix 7.0 *might* run without them, future versions *will require* them. Adding primary keys also provides a significant performance boost (often 20%+). Factor this database maintenance into your upgrade plan if needed.
• Follow the Official Upgrade Procedure: Stick to the step-by-step guide in the Zabbix documentation for your specific environment.
• Backup Everything: Before you start, ensure you have reliable backups of your Zabbix database and configuration files.

Conclusion: Get Ready for Zabbix 7.0!

Zabbix 7.0 LTS is shaping up to be a monumental release. The focus on scalability, high availability, usability, and deeper integration makes it incredibly compelling for both existing users and those considering Zabbix for their monitoring needs. Features like Proxy HA, LDAP JIT provisioning, and the new Selenium-based web monitoring are truly exciting developments.

I’ll definitely be exploring the new web monitoring capabilities in more detail once the documentation is fully available, so stay tuned for that!