The integration connects these perspectives in both directions. Statistics and inventory information collected by Zabbix can be synchronized with Sycope and analyzed alongside network traffic. At the same time, Sycope can provide network, security, performance and asset information directly to Zabbix as native monitoring items, triggers, graphs and dashboards.
Together, the platforms allow teams to correlate what is happening on a monitored host with what is happening around that host on the network, while preserving the monitoring processes already built around both systems.
Table of Contents
From a Zabbix metric to network context
Infrastructure monitoring often provides the first indication that something has changed. Zabbix may show increased CPU or memory utilization, packet loss, longer response times or deterioration in application performance.
Through the integration, selected Zabbix statistics can be synchronized with Sycope and presented alongside network flow data for the same systems and time periods.
This allows teams to compare infrastructure metrics with network latency, traffic volumes and actual communication between hosts during an investigation. Instead of treating infrastructure and network monitoring as separate sources of information, both can contribute to the same analysis.
Zabbix inventory data can also be synchronized with Sycope, including information such as hostnames, operating system details, serial numbers, notes and URLs. This provides additional context when analyzing traffic associated with a particular system.
The integration therefore extends a host or application metric with information about the network conditions and communication patterns surrounding it.
From Sycope network intelligence to the Zabbix workflow
The integration also works in the opposite direction.
The Sycope Monitoring Template for Zabbix retrieves selected information from Sycope through its REST API. NQL queries are executed for individual monitored hosts using their IP addresses, and the results are returned to Zabbix as standard monitoring data.
The current template includes 33 monitoring items per host covering security alerts, performance, network visibility, asset discovery and alert severity.
This information can be presented in Zabbix Latest Data, graphs and dashboards. It can also be evaluated by configurable triggers and included in the existing Zabbix Problems, acknowledgement and escalation workflow.
Teams using Zabbix as their main operational monitoring environment can therefore include selected network and security information from Sycope without creating a separate data pipeline or changing how they handle infrastructure alerts.
Complementary capabilities, clearly divided
Zabbix and Sycope remain independent products. The integration connects their data so that each platform can continue to perform the tasks for which it is designed.
Zabbix provides:
- Infrastructure, host and application monitoring
- System and service performance metrics
- Availability monitoring
- Active checks
- Triggers and problem management
- Established monitoring and escalation workflows
Sycope provides:
- Flow-based network analysis
- Host-to-host communication visibility
- Network performance analysis
- Network anomaly and threat detection
- Passive asset and service discovery
- Application and protocol mapping
- Historical network communication data
Zabbix provides detailed information about the condition of monitored systems. Sycope adds the network activity associated with those systems and makes it possible to examine their communication, performance and security context.
Why infrastructure monitoring and network visibility work better together
Infrastructure metrics describe the condition of a system, but they do not always explain what is happening in communication around it. Flow-based network data adds another source of evidence that can be correlated with the metrics already collected by Zabbix.
Performance context beyond host metrics
A degradation visible in Zabbix can be compared with the network behavior recorded by Sycope during the same period.
For example, increasing application response times can be analyzed together with network latency, packet loss, traffic volume and communication patterns involving the affected host. This provides more context for determining whether the problem is associated with the application, the underlying system, network communication or several components at the same time.
The same approach can be used when investigating intermittent issues. Historical network data in Sycope can provide information about the communication that occurred around the time when Zabbix recorded a change in performance.
Passive visibility into active services
Sycope observes network communication and can identify TCP services that are actively receiving connections. This information can be made available directly in Zabbix, including the number of observed services, active TCP ports and associated applications.
Because the information is derived from traffic already visible to Sycope, no additional port scan is required to obtain it.
This provides an additional way to verify which services are actually active on a monitored system and can help teams identify services that should also be covered by active Zabbix monitoring.
Verification of actual network communication
The integration can provide Zabbix with information about connections involving a monitored host, including communication with public and private addresses and connections in which the system acts as a client or server.
This allows observed network behavior to be compared with the expected role of a system.
A server that should communicate only within internal networks can be checked for connections with public addresses. Communication between network segments can be reviewed against expected segmentation policies, while new or unexpected destinations can provide a reason for further investigation.
The result is an additional validation layer based on traffic that has actually occurred rather than only on configuration or documentation.
Security context within the existing monitoring process
Sycope security alerts can also be surfaced in Zabbix and processed through its standard monitoring mechanisms.
The template includes information related to network behaviors such as horizontal and vertical scanning, initial connections from public IP addresses, unusual TCP flag activity and high client or server network latency.
Zabbix can display active Sycope alerts together with their severity and use configurable thresholds to generate problems.
This allows selected network security signals to become part of a monitoring workflow that operational teams already use, while Sycope continues to perform the underlying network analysis and detection.
A ready, documented integration
The Sycope–Zabbix integration is available through Sycope’s public GitHub repository and includes components for both directions of data exchange.
For Zabbix-to-Sycope synchronization, the repository provides Python scripts for collecting statistics and inventory information, together with configuration files and components used to create the required custom index and Lookup in Sycope.
Ready-to-use dashboards are available for presenting Zabbix statistics and inventory information inside Sycope. Custom fields and drilldown actions can also be imported to provide additional context and navigation during analysis.
For the opposite direction, the repository includes the Sycope Monitoring Template for Zabbix, an external check script, predefined monitoring items, triggers, graphs and a multi-host dashboard.
The components can be used as a starting point and adapted to the monitoring requirements of a specific environment.
How the integration works
The integration consists of four main building blocks.
Statistics synchronization
A Python-based synchronization script connects to the Zabbix API and collects selected monitoring metrics for defined systems.
Metrics such as CPU load, ICMP response time, memory usage and packet loss are aligned by timestamp. The script compares the collected information with data already available in the Sycope custom index to avoid storing duplicate samples and saves new data for further analysis and visualization.
Inventory synchronization
A separate script retrieves inventory information from Zabbix, including hostnames, operating system versions, serial numbers, notes and URLs.
New or changed information is stored in a dedicated Sycope Lookup, where it can be used as additional context for monitored systems and network communication.
Sycope Monitoring Template for Zabbix
In the Sycope-to-Zabbix direction, an external check script communicates directly with the Sycope REST API.
For each monitored host, the integration uses NQL queries filtered by the host IP address to retrieve relevant network, performance, security and asset information.
The results are returned to Zabbix and processed as native monitoring items. Configurable triggers can then evaluate this information using the same mechanisms used for other Zabbix monitoring data.
Dashboards, graphs and drilldowns
Both platforms can present information received through the integration in their existing interfaces.
Zabbix can display Sycope information through monitoring items, graphs, triggers and dashboards, while Sycope can present synchronized Zabbix statistics and inventory data alongside network traffic.
The repository also provides drilldown actions and custom fields that can be used to connect relevant information during an investigation.
Investigation across host and network data
Consider an application whose performance begins to deteriorate.
Zabbix records changes in the monitored host or application metrics and provides the operational symptom that starts the investigation. The corresponding statistics synchronized with Sycope can then be analyzed within the same time window as network traffic involving that system.
The team can review communication with dependent services, network latency, traffic volumes and other flow-based information to determine whether network behavior changed at the same time as the application metric.
If the investigation begins from the network side, the same relationship works in reverse. Sycope may detect unusual communication, a scanning pattern, increased network latency or an unexpected connection involving a monitored server. Selected information about this activity can appear directly in Zabbix, where it can be evaluated together with the host metrics and existing operational alerts.
The two platforms therefore provide different views of the same environment without requiring either system to replace the other.
Extending existing monitoring with network context
The Sycope–Zabbix integration connects infrastructure monitoring with the communication occurring between monitored systems.
Zabbix statistics and inventory data gain additional value when they can be correlated with network traffic in Sycope. Network visibility, performance information, passive service discovery and security alerts from Sycope can in turn become part of the standard Zabbix monitoring workflow.
The result is broader context for troubleshooting, performance analysis, infrastructure monitoring and security investigations using data already collected across both platforms.
Want to see how the Sycope–Zabbix integration can work in your environment? Schedule a call with our team.
