Patent ID: 8566279

Claim:
A data collection system, comprising: a central server that stores configuration data; a plurality of data sources that produce data; a plurality of collectors, each of the plurality of collectors stored in a computer readable storage medium and executable by a processor to: obtain corresponding configuration data from the central server; compare the obtained configuration data to configuration data stored in a memory of a corresponding server; determine that the obtained configuration data is different from the configuration data stored in the memory of the corresponding server based on the comparison; replace at least a portion of the configuration data stored in the memory with at least a portion of the obtained configuration data in response to determining that the obtained configuration data is different than the configuration data stored in the memory; and collect data from one of the plurality of data sources based on at least the at least a portion of the obtained configuration data when the obtained configuration data is different than the configuration data stored in the memory; a plurality of listeners stored in a computer readable storage medium and executable by a processor to receive the collected data from the plurality of collectors, wherein the plurality of listeners are implemented using a script programming language, and wherein the script programming language is Perl; and a loader stored in a computer readable storage medium and executable by a processor to load the collected data into a database, wherein the loader is implemented using an object oriented programming language.