Turnkey solutions and architecture review
Two ways in: have the estate you already run examined for what is slowing it
down, or have the whole thing designed, built, proved and handed over. The review works
just as well on an architecture you have not committed to yet, and it doubles as the
specification the build is quoted from.
Two ways in
Most people arrive needing one of two things, and they cost very different amounts. It is
worth being clear which one you are asking for.
Track A
Architecture review
You have an estate that is struggling, or a plan you want a second
opinion on. I find what is limiting it, tell you what to change, and hand you a
written report. You do the building.
Track B
Turnkey build
I design it, build it, prove it works, and hand it over documented.
You get monitoring that runs, not a specification.
What you get: architecture review
- Bottlenecks identified and measured - where the estate is actually
straining, whether that is poller saturation, a growing queue, database write latency
or housekeeping falling behind. Found in your data, not guessed from a checklist.
- Architecture changes for performance, with what to change, in what
order, and what each one should buy you.
- Configuration fixes and best practice - the settings that are wrong
or still on defaults, and the practices worth adopting before they become the next
problem.
- An honest high-availability assessment, including whether you need it.
- A growth projection, so the recommendations survive more than one budget cycle.
- A written report you can hand to whoever signs the invoice.
What you get: turnkey build
Everything above, and then the thing itself. Scoped per project, because a single site with
200 hosts and a multi-region estate with proxies in four countries are not the same job.
- Installation and configuration of the server, database and collectors, built to the
architecture agreed in the review.
- Templates and discovery for your actual estate, not just the
out-of-the-box set.
- Alerting that people will not mute: routing, escalation, and delivery by the channels
you already use.
- Dashboards for the people who have to look at them, which is rarely the same view
engineers want.
- Handover documentation and a walkthrough, so your team can run and
extend it without me.
- A defined support window after go-live while the estate settles.
Most of these builds land on Zabbix, often with Grafana in front of it, because that
combination covers the widest range of estates for the least licence cost. If your
requirements point somewhere else, I will say so during the review rather than after
you have paid for a build.
How it works
- You send the current picture
Host and item counts, what you are running now, your retention policy, and what is
hurting or what you are about to commit to.
- Review and report
The arithmetic, the topology and the hardware, written down with the assumptions
visible. This is a deliverable in its own right, and for many people it is enough.
- Decide on the build
If you want it built, the report becomes the specification and the quote comes from
it. No surprises, because the scope was written before the price.
- Build, prove, hand over
Built to the spec, demonstrated against your real estate, documented, then handed to
your team with a walkthrough.
What it costs
I do not put a number on this page, because a single site with 200 hosts and a
multi-region estate with proxies in four countries are not the same job and any figure
here would be wrong for one of you. What I can do is be straight about what moves it.
Drives it up
Scale and spread
Host and item counts, number of sites, proxies across networks or
countries, and whether high availability is a requirement.
Drives it down
Work already done
An estate that is partly templated, clear retention rules, and a
team that can take the handover without a long training tail.
How you find out
The review
Quoted on its own and useful on its own. It then becomes the
specification the build is priced from, so the scope is written before the
number.
The fastest route to a number is a short conversation. Send me the
rough shape of your estate and what you are trying to achieve, and I will come back
with what the review would cost and what the build is likely to involve. No obligation
and no drawn-out discovery process.
Tell me about your estate
Why me
I worked at Zabbix itself, not just with the product. On sizing and
architecture that is the difference that matters: the numbers come from having seen what
actually falls over at scale, not from the example table in the documentation. Nine years
on the product, and a Zabbix Certified Trainer, Expert, Professional and Specialist.
Where the review does put numbers on things, they come from the same sizing constants as
the two free tools below, so you can check my arithmetic before you hire me. Both rank
first for what they do, which is how most people reading this page found the site. And I
have been publishing Zabbix walkthroughs on YouTube for years, if you would rather judge
the thinking before you commit to anything.
If the free planner answers your question, use it. Pay me when the answer has to be right
the first time, when someone needs to sign off on it, or when you want it built rather
than specified.