If allowed I would like to cover some monitoring basics before getting started here. Hopefully, the three principles I will share here are not new to you. When evaluating to monitor something, there are three base principles to keep in mind:
Keep it simple
Keep your monitoring close to your infrastructure
Create good monitors
The first point is pretty easy to absorb, as it is rather self-explanatory. The worst thing you could ever do is over complicate something as important as monitoring. This principle not only applies to your overall approach, but it also applies to the tool you choose to do the monitoring. If you have to create a Visio diagram of your monitoring platform, it is too complicated.
The next point of keeping your monitoring close to your infrastructure is meant to express that the tool used to monitor should physically reside close to the infrastructure/application. The monitoring platform should not have to traverse VPNs or multiple firewalls just to poll...