Abstract: The remote monitoring and administration system and method provides proactive monitoring and maintenance of one or more storage systems at remote locations from a central monitoring system. The remote locations include at least one data storage system connected to the Internet. The central monitoring system includes one or more cluster nodes connected to the Internet. The monitoring and maintenance of the storage system(s) is preferably provided via a substantially constant live real-time connection over the Internet. In some embodiments, the invention includes a LAN port and the data storage system and central monitoring system are connected via a standard IP address.