Change happens at an increasingly rapid and intense pace in the hyperconnected world we live in. This affects consumer relationships, forcing retailers to find more efficient ways of attracting customers. Linx, a company under the StoneCo group and a technology specialist for retail, understands this and has been using Zabbix to provide a better experience for their customers since 2017.
With extensive operations in over 20 retail segments and a portfolio of more than 180 solutions, Linx serves both small entrepreneurs and large retailers, offering the largest retail ecosystem in Latin America. In 2018, a presentation by the company at the Zabbix Conference Latin America stood out as a practical demonstration of how Zabbix served as a key tool in Linx’s business. Keep reading to find out how Zabbix has stayed central to the company’s strategy ever since.
Table of Contents
The challenge
It all began in 2017 when Linx, understanding the importance of a stable IT environment, real-time data collection, and a quality customer journey, faced a challenge. They needed to transform their current Network Operation Center (NOC) into a structure aligned with the business that generated real value for customers. This required multiple actions, including:
- Migrating the physical operation and monitoring structure from Porto Alegre-RS to São Paulo-SP
- Reviewing the monitoring structure to generate indicators focused on customer success and experience
- Replacing their existing monitoring tool with a more flexible one to keep up with new challenges and guarantee technical investment
- Managing the mix of technologies used in the environment with a significant need for hybrid, cloud, and on-premises monitoring
- Making this new structure the main provider of information for the rest of the company
- Implementing a new NOC structure aligned with the business that would also generate value for customers
- Speeding up the response time whenever incidents and anomalies were detected
To meet the business challenges and needs, Linx partnered with Unirede Inteligência em TI, a Zabbix Premium Partner in Brazil, to support the validation and subsequent implementation project. At that time, Linx’s solutions were specialized in retail as well as on-premises and SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions, with a data and cloud services platform focusing on customer experience.
The solution
Linx needed a robust and flexible tool that could meet business needs and share data with multiple teams.
“Linx chose Zabbix because it is an open-source, flexible platform capable of monitoring various technologies with different collection methods. Having a specialized partner to support deliveries— in this case, Unirede— also impacted the decision.”
Gabriel Pedroso, CEO of Unirede Inteligência em TI
Linx’s existing monitoring structure focused only on network infrastructure, much like a traditional NOC. A new objective arose – to understand the customer journey across all products and service segments. Linx needed to be able to map what kind of retail experience was being promoted to customers, predict peak moments, and gain insight into other behaviors that could influence the customer experience and compromise transactions.
This led to the creation of the xCenter, a structure that would become Linx’s experience monitoring center, expanding the view of servers, communication links, memory usage, and other infrastructure details.
“The xCenter goes beyond assets to establish the monitoring of complex solutions in hybrid environments (on-premises and cloud), delivering mobility, relevant content, and flexibility. Everything is oriented towards customer success.”
Nelson Lima, Coordinator of Linx’s xCenter
During the project’s initial phase, there was a mindset shift among the company’s teams, resulting in cooperation towards the project’s success and a renewed focus on the customer experience.
The first discoveries in Linx’s network were also made, along with adjustments and improvements in existing monitoring, including business metrics and the use of dashboards for visual management. In the same year (2017) xCenter operations began, delivering the first monitoring results.
By 2018, gains were evident: teams no longer thought exclusively about servers, storage, and network assets, but rather about services, transactions, and delivery excellence. That year, the project evolved into what was called “Partiu Cloud,” introducing the first Azure cloud environment monitoring. This took place alongside the ongoing evolution of existing monitoring and the democratization of information generated by the structure for decision-making. Examples of business services monitored at that time included NFCe, TEF, POS, sales reports, fiscal coupon issuance time, POS synchronization, and SaaS delivery.
In 2019, the focus shifted to business, with assessments, structuring, and development of metrics for Linx’s products. By then, Linx’s sales force was already using availability and performance information in their service routine, accessing product dashboards from mobile devices and using the data in their pitches to customers.
A significant update occurred in 2021 with the upgrade to Zabbix 5.0 LTS, which increasingly supported the delivery of connectivity services to customers alongside the already delivered platform and software solutions.
2022 was marked by significant variations in the tool’s use – integration with Jira software, integration with Linx’s AD for secure login (SSO), and integrations with other communications tools. The tool was also customized, involving script execution and remote commands for specific collections.
2023 brought a new focus on automation, using integrations with other tools to automate functions in Zabbix. For example, Microsoft Power Automate was able to facilitate daily operational processes and improve the use of media types. The entire journey was a continuous process of adaptation and improvement, showing an increased focus on business metrics and customer experience.
“Zabbix enabled the democratization of fundamental business data and information across different company areas. In other words, monitoring has become a strategic element for Linx’s business.”
Gabriel Pedroso, CEO of Unirede Inteligência em TI
The results
After the cultural shift and Zabbix implementation, the following strategic and operational gains were observed:
Improved efficiency and agility. Problems are detected and resolved faster, with incidents directly handled by Zabbix through integrations that automate actions.
Additional integrations. Zabbix’s flexibility and scalability allow for integration with other structural components, supporting operational efficiency.
More customer-oriented features and a renewed customer focus. Using Zabbix enabled a focus on customer success through a change in culture and business perspective, with features reviewed from a user experience perspective.
Improved scalability. This came about thanks to Zabbix’s capacity to support large loads, perform distributed data collection, and expand as needed.
Better market alignment. Aligning operations and monitoring with market needs created specific panels and monitoring for major national retail dates, such as Black Friday and Christmas.
Better sales pitches. Sales pitches are now based on data and performance monitored by xCenter. The sales team presents real monitoring data as a pitch for service quality.
Consolidation. Integrating all monitoring in a single tool eliminates the need for multiple tools and integrations.
An investment guarantee. Zabbix is now seen as a tool that accompanies Linx through future challenges, negating the need for tool changes.
A democratization of information. xCenter provides information to the entire company, improving decision-making in the process.
What’s next?
The journey to success is never-ending, and the following steps demonstrate Linx’s ongoing commitment to improvement and innovation in monitoring and the future of managing customer experiences for the services provided by the company.
Upgrading to Zabbix LTS 6.0. This upgrade is a crucial step to keep the platform updated with the latest features and security improvements.
Integrating with WhatsApp. Linx aims to improve communication and notification flexibility by offering alerts and updates via the popular messaging app.
Application Tracking Monitoring (APM). This involves a renewed focus on enhancing application monitoring, which is essential for maintaining and optimizing system performance. This improvement is planned in Zabbix’s roadmap.
Business layer evolution. Enhancing the monitoring and analysis of business indicators for better data-based decision-making.
Enhancing Availability Metrics. Improving the precision and relevance of metrics related to service and product availability.
Evolving predictive metrics. Implementing and refining metrics that can predict trends or future problems, allowing proactive actions.
In conclusion
When taken together with Unirede’s support of retail monitoring, Linx’s success story with Zabbix is a true inspiration. With the help of Zabbix, Linx has turned data into information and information into action in order to prove the excellence of its services. Throughout its growth trajectory, the company has managed to turn challenges into opportunities, using Zabbix to optimize operations and focus on what really matters – satisfying their customers.
To find out more about what Zabbix can do across a variety of industries, feel free to visit our website or request a demo.
