Zabbix Conference 2015 was a great event with a very busy agenda, plenty of presentations, discussions and meetings. And hard work should always be rewarded! This year was no exception, so we threw in our Zabbix official party, which all attendees were invited to join.
Just because we’re partying, however, doesn’t mean we can’t do something special.
This time we found ourselves on the rooftop of the Gutenberg hotel, located in the very heart of the Old Town, just next to the Dome Cathedral. A cozy place with an open terrace overlooking the silhouettes of old buildings and churches. Add to this the beautiful sounds of smooth jazz, warm evening breeze, the camaraderie of old friends meeting each other after a year of being apart, and you will get a slight taste of that night’s atmosphere. Not bad, huh 🙂
It all started with a traditional speech by Alexei, founder and CEO of Zabbix. For a man with a lot of wisdom, his speech was concise and inspiring, and could be summed up into few short words “We love all of you. Now let’s party!”. And that’s exactly what we did!
Time for Zabbix Monsters, Titans and Fans
After cashing in the beer tokens and quenching our thirst, along with some delicious appetizers, an award ceremony started for some very special Zabbix Conference participants.
There were 3 nominations, all with their own winners:
- Zabbix Monster. A loyal participant who has attended Zabbix Conference for the 3rd time;
- Zabbix Titan. A super hero who has attended all 5 Zabbix conferences;
- Zabbix Fan. A generous attendee and his company who have paid extra for Zabbix Conference simply to support the event. Consider it being a SMALL SPONSOR.
We are glad to see that the number of participants that qualify for nomination is growing every year. We hope to see even more nominees next year, when we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the first release of Zabbix software.
Zabbix Auction
Zabbix Conference party is a very traditional event in a sense that it follows a similar scenario each year, which is “have fun and mingle”. All activities are aimed at making our guests feel full. Full of food and drinks, full of interesting conversions and laughs. This year’s addition was an idea to make even more people happy. So, we decided to invite a famous auction house to our party to assist us with finding new owners of unique, one-of-a-kind artifacts, all labeled with the Zabbix logo. The motivation behind this was to transfer all collected funds to one of the biggest charity foundations in Latvia “Ziedot.lv”. To make it even more appealing, Alexei has confirmed that Zabbix company will cover all collected donations 5 times over. And it started. There were 4 lots that included:
- a white sport t-shirt with Zabbix logo same as used by Zabbix company’s employees when participating in different sports events;
- Zabbix AgentD historical t-shirt dating from the first Zabbix Conference in the distant 2011;
- 2 beautiful beer mugs with Zabbix logo engraved and, of course, full of beer;
- a handy laptop bag with Zabbix logo embroidered.
While it started a bit slowly, with the audience trying to understand where they stand on the financial side at this moment and how much they are able to spend buying those rarities, we were able to raise a fantastic €120 for all 4 lots. Of course, we expected the bids to go as high as over $100,000,000 for every piece of art, but hey, this was our first time 🙂 As a result, we have
€120 (Zabbix Community) + €120 x 5 (Zabbix Company)= €720
donated to charity “Ziedot.lv” to make somebody else happy as well.
Please see below the proof of payment made on behalf of Zabbix Community and Zabbix company.
Most Wanted Voted Feature
For several years now we’ve provided all attendees of the Zabbix Conference with a chance to select one feature that will be developed by the Zabbix team. This is based on the result of all votes collected during the party.
The rules are simple. At the beginning of the party each participant is given 2 voting cards, which he/she can use to vote for any feature predetermined by Zabbix company.
This year the following 5 ZBXNEXT features were selected:
We were surprised to see how actively our guests were participating in the voting. Many were begging for additional voting chips, some were trying to convince their buddies to vote for their favorite feature, so mind games and “bribery” ensued 🙂
In total 210 voting cards were found in the ballot boxes. Check the graph below for the results:
This conference the top voted feature is ZBXNEXT-936, which will enable remote command support when a host is monitored by Zabbix proxy. Zabbix already provides remote command functionality to remedy a problem automatically by restarting a service or to collect extra information when some problem happens. These commands are executed on Zabbix agents, unless the host is monitored via a Zabbix proxy. This development would allow executing remote commands through Zabbix proxies.
When to expect such awesome functionality you ask? It is promised to be delivered in Zabbix 3.2, so stay tuned.
Final Words
It is always sad when the party is over. We already miss all of you, but this is why we’re already searching for a new place for the next Zabbix Conference party – to make sure next year is going to be even more fun for everyone. We hope to see all of your again soon here in Riga, Latvia. Have a great Zabbix year!