With all the benefits that a proxy brings, how can one resist embracing it wherever possible - especially on remote locations? Well, first, a Zabbix proxy doesn't work on thin air, it needs a server. If all you have on that remote location is SNMP, IPMI, or other protocols capable devices that have no way to install a Zabbix proxy, you'll have to live without this useful daemon.
Even if there is a machine that you can use for a Zabbix proxy, problems with that host will impact the monitoring of all other devices. As a proxy goes down, neither normal, active, SNMP, nor any other check would be processed. So one really must have a reliable host on the other end. But even reliable hosts can have problems. As we now know, all connections are initiated from the proxy (configuration synchronization and data transfer including), which essentially means Zabbix server has no idea whether proxy is still there. Well, this is not quite true, as a Zabbix server actually can find...