Zabbix Monitoring in Retail
Convenience and customer experience were key elements when developing a system and a specialized monitoring department at Linx.
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The hyperconnected world that we live in causes changes to occur at an increasingly accelerated and intense rate. This also impacts consumer relations, thus requiring retailers to adapt in order to find and implement efficient alternatives to attract consumers.
Linx, a StoneCo group company specialized in retail technology, understands this premise and has been partnering with Zabbix since 2017 to offer an increasingly better experience for customers. With extensive operations in more than 20 retail segments and a portfolio comprising more than 180 solutions, Linx provides services for all kinds of clients, from small entrepreneurs to large retailers, offering the largest retail ecosystem in Latin America.
In 2018, a presentation made by the company at Zabbix Conference Latin America garnered quite the attention by showing, in practice, how the use of the Zabbix tool was crucial for its monitoring area to be seen as strategic, occupying a central and important place for Linx’s operations.
More than five years have passed, which brought many changes. With the imperative of meeting business challenges and needs in mind, Linx sought an official Zabbix business partner, Unirede Inteligência em TI Zabbix Premium Partner in Brazil, to provide support in the validation and subsequent implementation project. At that time, the solutions Linx delivered to its customers were specially designed for retail, both online and offline, as well as on-premises and SaaS solutions, with a data platform and cloud services, focusing on customer experience.
And what makes the Zabbix tool continue to be used in a strategic and increasingly broader way by the company? Let’s take a look.
It all started in 2017, when Linx, after realizing the importance of a stable IT environment, real-time data collection and its strategy of providing a consumer experience that translates into success for clients, found itself facing a challenge:
How to transform its current Network Operation Center (NOC) into a structure that is in tune with the business and generates real value for clients?
To implement the idea that the operations area should be in tune with the business, it was necessary to focus on some actions, such as:
Migrate its physical operations and monitoring structure from Porto Alegre - RS to São Paulo - SP, as part of a major initial project;
Review the monitoring structure to generate indicators focused on the success and experience of its clients, not just IT infrastructure indicators;
Replace the monitoring tool used with a more flexible one, in order to monitor new challenges and ensure technological investments;
Manage the technology mix used in the environment based on the need for hybrid monitoring, Cloud and On-premises solutions;
Turn this new structure into the main provider of information for the rest of the company and for decision-making;
Implement a new NOC structure that is in tune with the business and would generate value for clients;
Speed up reaction time to detected incidents and anomalies.
Linx’s journey regarding the adoption of the Zabbix tool began in May 2017. The company was seeking a robust and flexible tool that met its business needs and was at the same time capable of sharing data with different teams, such as sales teams, for instance.
“Linx’s choice of Zabbix is due to the fact that this tool is an open source, flexible platform, capable of monitoring several technologies, all at once, with various collection methods. Having a partner specialized in the tool to support deliveries, in this case, Unirede, also had an impact on our decision.” – Gabriel Pedroso, CEO of Unirede Inteligência em TI
The monitoring structure implemented at that time was focused only on network infrastructure, just like a traditional NOC. Based on the needs identified internally, a new goal emerged: turning the usual into something new. Thus, it would be possible to understand our clients’ experiences – as well as the experience of our clients’ customers – across all products and according to the service segment.
The proposal consisted of mapping the type of experience offered to customers, peak moments and other behaviors that could influence the experience of using the solutions and compromise transactions.
This gave rise to xCenter – a structure that would become Linx’s experience monitoring center, expanding the view of the server, communication links, memory usage and other details in terms of the company’s infrastructure for all interested parties.
“xCenter allows us to see beyond assets and establish monitoring of complex solutions in hybrid environments (on-premises and cloud), delivering mobility, relevant content and flexibility. All of this aiming for customer success.” – Nelson Lima, Coordinator of Linx’s xCenter
From the beginning of the project, which lasted 6 months, to the solution production stage, we saw a change in the teams’ mindset, which resulted in the cooperation between all parties involved in the project’s success: everyone started taking a closer look at customer experience.
During this period, the first discoveries were carried out on the Linx network, as well as adjustments and improvements to existing monitoring actions, with the inclusion of business metrics and the use of dashboards for management practices. That same year, 2017, xCenter operations began, as well as the delivery of the first monitoring results.
In 2018, we could already see internal gains: teams were no longer thinking exclusively about servers, storage and network assets, but rather about the excellence of services, transactions and deliveries. That same year, the project evolved into what was called “Partiu Cloud”, with the introduction of the first Azure cloud environment monitoring actions, in addition to the constant improvement of existing monitoring actions and the democratization of the information generated by the structure for informed decision-making.
Let’s see some examples of business services already monitored at the time: NFCe, TEF, POS, sales report, tax coupon issuance time, POS synchronization, SaaS delivery and others.
In 2019, our focus turned to the business, with assessments, structuring and development of metrics for Linx products. At that time, Linx’s sales force was already using availability and performance information in their service routines, accessing the company’s product dashboards from cell phones and using such data as sales arguments.
In 2021, there was a significant update to the tool, with the upgrade from version 4.4 to Zabbix 5.0 LTS, which resulted in monitoring actions increasingly supporting the delivery of connectivity services to customers, in addition to the platform and software solutions already being delivered.
In 2022, there were important variations in terms of how the tool was used: Zabbix integration with Jira Software, integration with Linx AD for secure sign-on (SSO) and integrations with communication tools. Additionally, the tool was customized, with improvements in the execution of scripts and remote commands for specific collections.
Lastly, in 2023, Linx focused on automation, using integrations with other tools to automate Zabbix functions, such as Microsoft Power Automate, which facilitated day-to-day operational processes and improved the use of media types.
The entire journey presented so far shows a continuous process of adaptation and improvement, reflecting a growing focus on business metrics and customer experience.
“Zabbix allowed us to democratize business data and information that are crucial to different areas of the company. In other words, monitoring has become a strategic element for Linx’s business.” – Gabriel Pedroso, CEO of Unirede Inteligência em TI
After the culture change and the implementation of Zabbix in the company, the following gains were observed, both in operational and in business strategy terms.
Efficiency and agility: issues are identified and solved faster, incidents are handled directly by Zabbix with integrations that automate actions.
Integrations: Zabbix’s flexibility and expandability allow you to integrate the tool with other structural components to support operational efficiency.
Customer-centered features: using Zabbix with a focus on customer success through a change in culture and business vision, with features that have been reviewed according to user experience, making it possible to deliver promising results.
Customer focus: as a result, there has been an increased focus on customer needs and experience.
Scalability: using Zabbix’s ability to support large loads, collect data in a distributed way and make expansions as needed.
Alignment with the market: increased alignment of operations and monitoring actions with market needs, with the creation of specific panels and monitoring actions for major commercial dates for national retailers, such as Black Friday and Christmas.
Sales Argument: improvements in sales arguments based on data and performance monitored by xCenter. The sales team presents real monitoring data both as a sales argument and to promote the quality of services.
Unification: consolidation and integration of monitoring actions into a single tool, eliminating the need for a specific tool for each area.
Investment guarantee: Zabbix began to be seen as a tool that supports the company in several future challenges, thus does not requiring any ulterior tool changes.
Democratization of information: xCenter provides information for the entire company that, in addition to being used for decision-making, is available to everyone.
A truly successful journey does not exactly come to an end: it continues, in search of new challenges for growth. The steps below show Linx’s continuous commitment to improvement and innovation in terms of monitoring and with the future of customer experience management in terms of the services promoted by the company.
Linx’s success story with Zabbix, along with Unirede’s support in retail monitoring, is truly an inspiration.
With Zabbix, Linx converted data into information, and information into an argument used to corroborate the excellence of the services provided.
The company, with its history of success and continuous growth, managed to turn challenges into opportunities, using Zabbix to optimize operations and focus on what really matters: customer satisfaction.
Linx is a Brazilian company specialized in technology for retailers, operating in Brazil and Latin America. Sold in 2020 to Stone for 6.7 billion Brazilian reais, Linx continues to be a leading company in the management software market, with 45.6% of the retail system market in Brazil, as attested by IDC.
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