Intrusion detection systems fall into one of three categories: Host Based Intrusion Detection Systems (HIDS), Network Based Intrusion Detection Systems (NIDS), and hybrids of the two.
An Intrusion Detection System (IDS) is a monitoring system that detects suspicious activities and generates alerts when they are detected.
Based upon these alerts, a security operations center (SOC) analyst or incident responder can investigate the issue and take the appropriate actions to remediate the threat.
An example of an NIDS would be installing it on the subnet where firewalls are located in order to see if someone is trying to break into the firewall.
Ideally one would scan all inbound and outbound traffic, however doing so might create a bottleneck that would impair the overall speed of the network.