Best practice around Zenoss template bindings

After working with Zenoss Core for a few years now, I wanted to pass along a tip that would have saved me a lot of time had I known it in the beginning: do not bind performance templates to individual devices, or make local modified copies of templates on devices. Once you do this, the device no longer inherits template bindings from the parent device class, but you have no good way to know that this condition exists unless you drill into the device and examine its template bindings.

When you move a device from one class to another, if it lacks local bindings or overridden templates, it will inherit the bindings of the new class. However, this does not occur if you have made any local changes as above. Also, if you bind new performance templates to its parent, it ignores these new bindings if you have made any local changes. I highly recommend that if you need local changes to a device, make a new device class and make the template binding changes to the class. Then, move the device to the new class, and it will pick up the new bindings.

To clear this condition on a device once you have made local changes, you must reset bindings to be those of its container. On the device, go to More | Templates, then use the drop-down arrow next to "Performance templates for device," and finally Reset Bindings.