Data Sources specify exactly which data points to collect and how to collect them. Every Performance Template has one or more Data Sources. Zenoss Core provides two builtin types of Data Sources: SNMP and COMMAND. Other types can be provided through ZenPacks. When creating a new Data Source with the Add New DataSource menu item you choose from a list of available Data Source types. All Data Source types will have a Name field and an Enabled True/False option. Which other configuration options are presented depends on the type of Data Source.

SNMP Data Sources define data to be collected via SNMP by the ZenPerfSNMP daemon. They contain one additional field to specify which SNMP OID to collect. Note that many OIDs need to end in .0 in order to work. Because SNMP Data Sources specify exactly one performance metric they usually have exactly one Data Point (see below.) See SNMP Monitoring section for further details.

COMMAND Data Sources specify data to be collected by a shell command that is executed on either the Zenoss server itself or on the monitored device via a telnet or ssh session. The ZenCommand daemon processes COMMAND Data Sources. A COMMAND Data Source might return one or more performance metrics and will usually have one Data Point for each metric (see below.) Shell commands used with COMMAND Data Sources must return data that conforms to the Nagios plug-in output specification. See the Monitoring Using ZenCommand section for further details.

Figure 12.3. Data Source