Switching from Zabbix to Aliyun Cloud Monitor for Non-ECS Servers
I enjoy tinkering with VPS servers and currently manage over 20 of them. To facilitate management, unified server monitoring is essential. Initially, I chose a self-hosted Zabbix + Grafana setup, but it proved relatively troublesome to maintain and complex to configure. Recently, I switched all Zabbix instances to Aliyun Cloud Monitor, which fully meets daily monitoring needs.
Installing Aliyun Cloud Monitor
Cloud Monitor collects server monitoring data via a plugin. This plugin supports installation on non-ECS servers. Since I am not using Aliyun ECS, I selected the installation option for non-Aliyun hosts.
Choose the installation script based on your operating system. If you are using Linux, simply copy the installation command and execute it on the server. It is very simple. (Note: Root permissions are required.)
After installation, wait a few tens of seconds, and the server will appear in the host monitoring instance list, as shown below.
Viewing Monitoring Data
Key monitoring metrics are collected once per second, and all metrics are reported every 15 seconds. This means the minimum time interval between data points in the monitoring graph is 15 seconds. Generally, you can view server monitoring data a few minutes after installation. CPU, memory, bandwidth, and other usage statistics are clearly visible.
It also supports process-level monitoring, which is excellent. If you want to implement process monitoring with Zabbix, you would need to write various scripts and configurations, which is very troublesome. Aliyun Cloud Monitor integrates this feature directly.
Custom Dashboards
When managing a large number of servers, checking individual servers one by one is inconvenient and hinders data comparison. Aliyun Cloud Monitor allows you to create custom monitoring dashboards. You can add servers with the same purpose to a dashboard group to view aggregated data for multiple servers.
Alert Configuration
You can also customize alert rules to notify responsible personnel immediately when server metrics become abnormal. Currently supported notification methods include: Phone, SMS, Email, and DingTalk Bot (unfortunately, WeChat is not supported, haha). The free SMS quota is 1,000 messages per month, with a charge of 0.045 CNY per message for any excess. For individual users, the 1,000 free SMS messages are more than sufficient. This is a rare conscientious product from YunTao.
For more monitoring metrics, refer to: Monitoring Item Description
Summary
- Aliyun Cloud Monitor is much simpler to install and use than Zabbix.
- Aliyun Cloud Monitor supports installation on non-Aliyun hosts, allowing you to integrate and centrally view VPS servers from multiple providers.
- The free SMS alert quota is 1,000 messages per month, which is fully sufficient for individual users.
Aliyun Cloud Monitor Documentation: Host Monitor Overview