Patent Number: 
Section: claims

1. A performance system for a plurality of members configured as an entity, comprising:a performance monitor system in each of the plurality of members that monitors member specific metrics, the performance monitor system logs performance metric information based on corresponding member specific configuration settings, the performance monitor system comprises a configuration consumer component that determines settings in the member specific configuration settings and logs performance metric information based on the settings; anda first computer that includes a gathering and aggregation system that gathers performance metric data from the plurality of members and aggregates the performance metric data into a unified result set. 2. The system of claim 1, wherein each of the plurality of members have a gathering and aggregation system such that the unified result set can be gathered and aggregated from any of the plurality of members. 3. The system of claim 1, the performance monitor system for each of the plurality of members employing a time aggregation component adapted to aggregate member specific metrics over time. 4. The system of claim 3, the time aggregation component being further operable to aggregate member specific performance metrics data into data of larger time periods and larger resolutions. 5. The system of claim 4, the time aggregation component aggregates member specific performance metrics data into data of larger time periods and larger resolutions by taking one of an average, a minimum, a maximum, a last and a weighted average of performance metrics data of a first time period and first resolution to evaluate performance metric data of a consecutive time period and consecutive resolution. 6. The system of claim 1, the performance gathering and aggregation system further comprising a performance entity aggregation component adapted to gather and aggregate performance metric data values of a particular time period and resolution from the plurality of members based on a time period and time resolution requested by a requestor. 7. The system of claim 6, the performance entity aggregation component being operable to aggregate data performance values having similar data times to form a unified result set over the particular time period and time resolution. 8. The system of claim 7, the performance entity aggregation component aggregating member specific performance metrics into a unified result set by evaluating a single data value for data points of similar data times by taking one of an average, a minimum, a maximum, a last and a weighted average of data of similar data times. 9. The system of claim 1, the plurality of members logs member specific operational metrics to a data store corresponding to that particular member. 10. The system of claim 1, the gathering and aggregation system being further adapted to receive a request from a requester for operational metric information for the entity and return the unified result set back to the requestor. 11. The system of claim 10, the requestor being one of an external process, an internal process, an external consume, a user interface and another entity. 12. The system of claim 1, the first computer being configurable to receive a configuration setting defining the operational metric information to be logged, the first computer replicating the configuration setting to the plurality of members. 13. The system of claim 12, wherein any of the plurality of members are configurable to receive a configuration setting defining the operational metric information to be logged. 14. The system of claim 1, the performance gathering and aggregation system being operable to aggregate valid operational metric data and compensate for invalid operational metric data. 15. The system of claim 1, the gathering and aggregation system being further adapted to provide a unified result set of operational metric data for a single member. 16. A system for monitoring performance metrics of a plurality of members configured as an entity, comprising:a first computer having configurable performance metric settings for determining performance metrics to be monitored; andeach of the plurality of members of the entity having member specific configuration settings wherein selection of performance metrics in the first computer is propagated to the member specific configuration settings of each of the plurality of members, at least one of the plurality of members includes a performance monitor system that logs performance metric information based on corresponding member specific configuration settings, the performance monitor system comprises a configuration consumer component that determines settings in the member specific configuration settings and logs performance metric information based on the settings. 17. The system of claim 16, wherein the first computer is a first member of the plurality of members and changes to the configurable performance metric settings at the first member are dynamically updated at the member specific configuration settings of the plurality of members. 18. The system of claim 16, the configuration consumer component being notified of changes in the member specific configuration settings and being operable to access these changes through a configuration store. 19. The system of claim 16, the configuration consumer component being operable to access a configuration store to create a global list containing performance metrics to be logged to a data store. 20. The system of claim 19, the performance monitor system further comprising a metric consumer component communicatively coupled to the configuration consumer component wherein the metric consumer component accesses the global list and retrieves performance metric data from a metric source based on the performance metrics in the global list and logs the performance metric data to the data store. 21. The system of claim 20, wherein the configuration consumer component defines a time period for the metric consumer component to retrieve performance metric data from the metric source and log the performance metric data to the data store. 22. The system of claim 21, the performance metric data being logged based on a predefined time period to the data store. 23. The system of claim 22, further comprising a member time aggregation component operable to dynamically aggregate the performance metric data being logged based on a predefined time period and time resolution in the data store to data sets of larger time periods and larger time resolutions. 24. A method for gathering and aggregating performance metrics of a plurality of members configured as an entity, comprising the step of:determining a plurality of settings that correspond to a plurality of member specific configuration settings;employing a configuration consumer component that monitors and logs performance metrics at a plurality of members based upon the settings that correspond to a plurality of member specific configuration settings;querying at least one operational metric from the plurality of members;aggregating the at least one performance metric from the plurality of members to form a unified result set; andsetting a configuration at one of the plurality of members defining the performance metric data to be logged at each of the plurality of members and replicating the configuration to each of the plurality of members. 25. The method of claim 24, further comprising the steps of receiving a request from a requestor for a performance metric for the entity prior to the step of querying and returning the unified result step. 26. The method of claim 24, further comprising the step of aggregating the performance metric over time at each of the plurality of members after the step of monitoring and prior to the step of querying. 27. The method of claim 26, the step of aggregating the operational metric over time at each of the plurality of members comprising the step of aggregating the operational metric into data sets of at least one larger time period and larger time resolution. 28. The method of claim 27, the step of aggregating the operational metric from the plurality of members to form a unified result set comprising aggregating data performance values having similar data times to form a unified result set. 29. A method for monitoring performance metrics of a plurality of members configured as an entity, comprising:determining configurable performance metric settings for determining performance metric types to be monitored;employing a configuration consumer component that monitors and logs performance metric data at each of the plurality of members based on any changes in the performance metric settings;propagating the performance metric settings to a plurality of remaining members of the entity to establish performance metric configuration settings at the plurality of members; anddynamically updating the logging of performance metric data at each of the plurality of members based on any changes in the performance metric settings. 30. The method of claim 29, further comprising an act of logging performance metric data at predefined time periods and resolutions at each of the plurality of members based on the performance metric configuration settings at each of the plurality of members.