Patent ID: 8145752

Claim:
A method for drift visualization of change data of a data center, the data center including a plurality of configuration items, the method comprising: continuously monitoring one or more of the plurality of configuration items for changes in computing resource characteristics; detecting changes in the computing resource characteristics, wherein the computing resource characteristics including hardware and software configurations and operations being performed on the one or more of the plurality of configuration items; storing the changes in a data store; and providing a graphical visualization of a subset of the changes, the subset being defined through a query that is formatted for retrieve the subset from the data store, wherein the graphical visualization shows the subset of the changes on a first date and the subset of the changes on a second date; wherein the providing the graphical visualization includes providing a graphical representation of changes on a particular date that violate a data center policy, in the computing resource characteristics for the one or more of the plurality of configuration items, wherein the computing resource characteristics for the one or more of the plurality of configuration items whose changes on the particular date violate the data center policy are not within a predefined value range of the data center policy.