Patent ID: 8600996

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving, by a computing device executing programming instructions for a monitor server, change data associated with a plurality of changes captured on a target host, the target host providing the change data in response to detecting the plurality of changes to target host data using one or more rules or collection policies to capture the changes, wherein the change data includes at least one or more of the following: rules, settings, or parameters; analyzing, by the monitor server, the change data in order to group the change data into clusters; classifying, by the monitor server, the clusters relating to at least one potential reason for the plurality of changes in order to categorize at least some of the clusters; determining, by the monitor server, whether the change data violate one or more compliance policies; generating, by the monitor server, one or more test results based at least on the results of the determining; analyzing, by the monitor server, the one or more test results in order to group the one or more test results into test result clusters; and classifying, by the monitor server, the test result clusters relating to at least one potential reason for the plurality of changes in order to categorize at least some of the test result clusters.