With nagios (nagios3), the normal check interval is set to 5 minutes, and the retry is set to 1 minute. If your services are not that critical, you can increase the default check interval, perhaps from five minutes (or 600 seconds) to something like 10 minutes or 15 minutes.
Look for a file like `generic-service_nagios.cfg` in your configuration directory, possibly:
/etc/nagios3/conf.d/generic-service_nagios2.cfg
Then you can find the corresponding lines to make the edits you need:
define service{
name generic-service
active_checks_enabled 1
passive_checks_enabled 1
parallelize_check 1
obsess_over_service 1
check_freshness 0
notifications_enabled 1
event_handler_enabled 1
flap_detection_enabled 1
failure_prediction_enabled 1
process_perf_data 1
retain_status_information 1
retain_nonstatus_information 1
notification_interval 0
is_volatile 0
check_period 24×7
normal_check_interval 5
retry_check_interval 1
max_check_attempts 4
notification_period 24×7
notification_options w,u,c,r
contact_groups admins
register 0
}
