Most companies today have some form of monitoring mechanism implemented to monitor different components of their IT system. There are various monitoring solutions out there. Some are more sophisticated than others, and, in general, there are different levels of monitoring available. Most monitoring solutions focus on System Health Monitoring, Alerts and QoS (Quality of Service) Data (Performance) which are the basic forms of monitoring, giving the operations team a better understanding of the general health and the availability of the environment. The Diagnostics category is a more advanced proactive monitoring pillar and it is extremely useful in narrowing down specific issues.

What Kip Ng, a Principal Premier Field Engineer, wants to talk about isn’t one of these first 4 categories, rather it is one of the monitoring systems that he doesn't see many companies implement, which is Configuration Monitoring. Configuration monitoring remains as one of the most neglected monitoring needs for most companies, yet, in his opinion, it is probably one of the most essential ones. Full details available at http://www.opsvault.com/it-configuration-monitoring-what-is-it-and-why-do-we-need-it/.