Patent ID: 7606804

Claim:
A method of data management for a distributed network of data sources, the method comprising: providing a distributed network, the distributed network comprising a plurality of data sources comprised of a plurality of linked and independent, unlinked nodes; identifying and fixing performance and capacity management related issues, generating and identifying trends of resource utilization over time within the distributed network, by performing the steps of: monitoring the plurality of linked and independent, unlinked nodes, wherein each node comprises a portion of a hierarchy of nodes, wherein at least one set of nodes is arranged in multiple hierarchies; obtaining data from the at least one set of nodes arranged in multiple hierarchies; storing the data from the at least one set of nodes in at least one data structure in accordance with a predetermined data structure configuration; receiving at least one parameter associated with selected data from the data structure and associated with the at least one set of multiple linked and unlinked nodes arranged in multiple hierarchies; correlating the selected data from the at least one set of multiple linked and unlinked nodes; predicting an impact on each node and the multiple hierarchies associated with the at least one set of nodes, the impact created by a change to another node, the prediction based on the selected data and the correlation; and processing the selected data to generate an output, wherein the output is based at least in part on the selected data, the associated multiple nodes, and the predicted impact, wherein the output is separable to indicate a predicted impact and associated output for each of the multiple hierarchies.