Monitoring application performance over IT infrastructure is common practise for cloud providers, and is the foundation for ensuring the health of systems and quality of service for users. However, with the architecture of cloud computing allowing the allocation and provision of resources to be set at several layers, the scope for potential performance issues is increased and as a result increases the time and effort required to detect any issues. Cloud implementations often mean a reduction in IT staff, who are traditionally responsible for problem solving. Therefore monitoring must become automatic, dynamic and proactive compared to responsive and traditional 'fire fighting' approaches. In this paper, we look at the hierarchy of cloud computing and its effects on monitoring. With Cloud computing having several levels where resources can be allocated, as a result these can also form restrictions on the system, this increases the number of problem areas that support teams have to monitor, to avoid adverse effects on other parts of the cloud architecture where conflicts for resources can occur between applications and at different segments of the hierarchy.