All excellent points. I'd just like to add that when tackling monitoring, know exactly what problem(s) you're trying to solve. Monitoring-for-monitoring's-sake

All excellent points. I'd just like to add that when tackling monitoring, know exactly what problem(s) you're trying to solve. Monitoring-for-monitoring's-sake is a fool's game. Are you monitoring to get usage patters? Debug production problems? Troubleshoot for customer service? Know what actionable information you want/need from your monitoring solution and let that guide the approach.