Following on from my Forum post:  https://www.zabbix.com/forum/zabbix-troubleshooting-and-problems/391176-execution-times-for-queries-and-or-userparameter

I have a need to query database servers and report on the responsiveness of the server.  The current (complicated) method would be to have the agent/server run a query (via odbc or via the user agent) and the pull back multiple items in JSON format.

The JSON result would need to have multiple calculations performed before being constructed and sent back to the sever for processing, these items would be the timing values (manually calculated) and the actual results (assuming that timeouts, errors etc were handled appropriately)

A much nicer method would be to have Zabbix collect metrics on the metrics!

For example, I need to query tablespace free space on an oracle instance.  The query normally takes 0.02 of a second.  If the server is busy, this can take longer... say... 4 or 5 seconds.  On occasions it can take 33 seconds if the server is under extreme load.  The query would complete, but Zabbix would record a timeout, but it would be useful to record the fact that it took 33 seconds.

This information could be be added as an extra column in the database and passed back from agent as general metadata. Most people would not need this level of information, but it could provide valuable insights in large organisations.