Patent ID: 7640258

Claim:
A system for gathering and aggregating operational metrics of a plurality of servers configured as an entity, comprising: a plurality of member servers configured to form an array of servers; at least one of the plurality of member servers comprising a gathering and aggregation system configured to gather operational event metric data from each of the member servers and coalesce the operational event metric data into a unified result set, wherein the operational event metric data is indicative of one or more states of the plurality of member servers, and wherein the unified result set is indicative of system-wide state of the array of servers; wherein the gathering and aggregation system receives a request from an interface for event metrics corresponding to the plurality of member servers over a particular time period and, in response to the request, queries each of a plurality of the member servers for specific time period event data corresponding to the particular time period for which the gathering and aggregation system has received the request for event metrics and that is relevant to each correspondingly queried member server; wherein at least two of the plurality of queried member servers provides the specific time period event data that is correspondingly relevant to the at least two queried member servers and corresponding to the particular time period; wherein the specific time period event data is tracked and logged by each corresponding member server in a corresponding data store for each member server according to event type and wherein data from at least two member servers is combined into a table according to the event type along with a corresponding timestamp and unique identification number specific to each logged event, as well as a member identifier that identifies at which member each logged event occurred; wherein the gathering and aggregation system thereafter, further in response to the request, coalesces the specific time period event data from the table into a single event result set and provides the single result set to the interface along with at least a first and a last unique identifier associated with first and last logged events corresponding to the specific time period and that exist in the table and thereby facilitating a response to an additional request about the single result set by referencing at least one of the first and last unique identifier and corresponding data from the table in response to the additional request; and wherein the interface provides at least a portion of the unified result set, thereby facilitating representation of the array of servers such that the array of servers is perceived as a singular server, to a requestor, and wherein the interface is also configured to submit the additional request in response to user input.