Patent ID: 8429187

Claim:
A system for tagging metrics, the system comprising: a computer system comprising computer hardware, the computer system managing a virtualization infrastructure generated on behalf of multiple users, wherein the computer system comprises one or more computing nodes and is programmed to implement: a default tagging module configured to tag metrics related to performance of the one or more computing nodes with default tags comprising key and value pairs, by at least associating the default tags with the metrics; an acquisition module configured to receive at least one additional tag comprising a key and one or more criteria for the at least one additional tag from a requesting user or application, wherein the at least one additional tag has a different key than the default tags; a processing module configured to analyze the at least one additional tag to determine one or more computing nodes to communicate with in order to dynamically tag the metrics with the at least one additional tag based at least in part on the one or more criteria for the at least one additional tag; and a tagging module configured to communicate with the determined one or more computing nodes to request tagging of the one or more metrics with the at least one additional tag, thereby producing tagged metrics that may subsequently be aggregated, wherein tagging of the one or more metrics comprises: associating the at least one additional tag dynamically with each metric in a subset of the metrics if the one or more criteria for the at least one additional tag are satisfied by each metric in the subset of metrics, and assigning a dynamic value to the at least one additional tag for each metric in the subset of metrics that the at least one additional tag is associated with, based at least in part on the key of the at least one additional tag.