Elements of IT infrastructure should be selected for monitoring based on:

The selection of IT infrastructure elements for monitoring should prioritize dependencies. This is because understanding the relationships between various components within the IT environment allows organizations to identify critical systems and their interconnectedness. By monitoring these dependencies, teams can ensure that if one component fails or experiences degradation, the impact on related systems can be quickly assessed and managed.

Monitoring based on dependencies enables effective risk management since it highlights areas where a failure in one system could cascade and affect others, thereby allowing for proactive measures to be taken. This strategic approach is essential for maintaining operational continuity and minimizing the potential for outages or data loss associated with interrelated systems.

While audit logs, thresholds, and replacement costs are important aspects of IT operations and risk management, they typically do not inform the monitoring decisions to the same strategic level as a dependency-based approach. Audit logs provide historical data for compliance or incident investigations, thresholds define acceptable operational limits for performance but don't address system relationships, and replacement cost is more relevant to financial assessments rather than monitoring needs. Thus, focusing on dependencies ensures that organizations can maintain a comprehensive view of their infrastructure's health and resilience.