Unix® System Management Primer Plus

Internal Versus External Monitoring

Most monitoring is done from the inside; an organization's production services are monitored from within their own network infrastructure. This setup has some inherent problems. Because the system is operating from within your own network, for example, the internal monitoring system won't tell you when a third-party network problem is causing an outage on your network.

If you must monitor from within, you may want to consider provisioning a separate circuit through a different network provider (not the one providing your primary Internet connection) through which you can monitor your systems. This arrangement gives you the same view of your systems that an end user would have, and a more accurate picture of ...