Patent ID: 7861244

Claim:
A computer-implemented method, comprising: logically partitioning a physical computing system into at least one virtual computing system; executing a virtual operating system in the at least one virtual computing system; executing a plurality of virtual machines in the virtual operating system, the plurality of virtual machines including a first virtual machine and a second virtual machine; executing a central performance data server in the virtual operating system, the central performance data server to collect and store performance data of each of the plurality of virtual machines executing in the virtual operating system, wherein the performance data is collected at predefined intervals; executing a remote performance monitoring server in the virtual operating system, the remote performance monitoring server to respond to requests for the performance data of one of the plurality of virtual machines executing in the virtual operating system; receiving, at a remote performance monitoring client executing in the first virtual machine, a request from a user for the performance data of the second virtual machine; sending the request from the remote performance monitoring client to the remote performance monitoring server, wherein the remote performance monitoring server retrieves the requested performance data and sends the requested performance data to the remote performance monitoring client; receiving the requested performance data at the remote performance monitoring client from the remote performance monitoring server; and displaying at least a portion of the requested performance data based on an authorization level associated with the request, wherein the portion of the requested performance data is displayed by the remote performance monitoring client to the user.