In an ideal world, databases would be self-monitoring. The database itself would kill a hanging process automatically. The creation of a new database would cause the automatic creation of backup jobs. The database would do what's needed to keep query performance above a certain accepted level. Unfortunately, none of the database providers are even close to providing this functionality. That's why DBAs are still needed.
There are two kinds of monitoring scenarios:
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Reactive monitoring deals more with the resolution of existing issues or those that crop up.
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Proactive monitoring is the process of looking at a current server state and making estimates and plans for changes to the underlying objects. The objective is to prevent issues, increase scalability, and maintain availability.