I suppose it depends on the thing(s) being monitored though. I certainly do not want to have 4 people for my always-on development project. I am designing the system to be as fault tolerant and self-healing as possible so I do not have to have people (read: me) awakened at 3AM with alerts.

Maybe I'm insane or overly optimistic or both. Designing things to bend and not break is really difficult and time consuming. "Thanks Captain Obvious! You are so insightful!" No, I know, but I'm going through the cutting-of-teeth ritual now so these kinds of things are on my mind.