# What is the difference between Physical probe and virtual probe? **URL:** \ **Category:** General\ **Tags:** how-to\ **Created:** [May 6, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.sapphireims.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-physical-probe-and-virtual-probe/635 "2021-05-06T16:59:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![m.shoaib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df788c/32.png) [@m.shoaib](https://community.sapphireims.com/u/m.shoaib)\ **Post date:** [May 6, 2021, 4:59pm UTC](https://community.sapphireims.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-physical-probe-and-virtual-probe/635/1 "2021-05-06T16:59:11Z")
Can someone briefly explain with an example the difference between physical probe vs virtual probe ? ---
**Author:** ![dharmaraj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a587f6/32.png) [@dharmaraj](https://community.sapphireims.com/u/dharmaraj)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2021, 5:52am UTC](https://community.sapphireims.com/t/what-is-the-difference-between-physical-probe-and-virtual-probe/635/2 "2021-05-07T05:52:51Z")
Physical probe required an probe installation in the customer environmental to collect the data and pushed to MSP Server over http/https. This is like an dedicated server for the local environmental. Advantage: 1. Dedicated server for the environmental 2. Support all the feature of product 3. Communication will happen over https channel. 4. Can able to manager multiple geo location Dis-Advantage 1. Required dedicated hardware 2. May not be suitable for small locations as need to invest of hardware 3. Ease of use will not be there Virtual Probe: It will not required any dedicated hardware and will create an logical probe which will allow agents directly push information to the server . Advantage: 1. No hardware requirements for locations 2. Fast execution of jobs etc. 3. All Windows and Linux system are managed Dis-Advantage 1. Network devices are not supported 2. Application Monitoring not supported for local devices.