Everything in the world of electronics gets smaller, while performance continues to grow. I know I should not compare those computers from 1960 with what we have now, but I still get amazed all the time.

The thing about modern computers is that sometimes it is a waste of resources to see them using a small fraction of their computing power to perform some very small task. It is like seeing a huge crane lifting a grocery paper bag. Of course, modern computers allow you to run many tasks simultaneously, sharing the power. You may use virtualization to run several logical machines on one device. But still sometimes there are cases when all you need is just a cheap, reliable, energy and space efficient device to do the work.

So when I heard that a company Observe IT from the UK, a potential partner of Zabbix, is willing to test-drive Raspberry Pi with Zabbix Proxy, I happily replied “Send it over here!”. It took more than 2 long weeks for British-Latvian post offices to deliver a very lightweight box to our office. While awaiting the package, we retweeted a message from Richard Gate about successfully installing Zabbix on Raspberry Pi. It made us jealous, but we were willing to see how it works ourselves.

So we started with a careful unpacking of the box.