A system manager tests, administers and monitors, and/or diagnoses problems with a distributed system having a plurality of computing machines. Each machine includes an event monitoring agent and the system manager comprises a data collection module (DCM), a data management module (DMM), a data storing module (DSM), and a user interface module (UIM). The DCM receives a request from the DMM describing performance data to be collected from each agent, and based on the request the DCM then collects such performance data from each agent and sends same to the DMM. The DMM stores the performance data at the DSM along with metadata corresponding to the request for current and future usage, including monitoring, analyzing and evaluation. The UIM receives requests from a user and forwards same to the DMM, and formats data from the DSM and represents the formatted data to the user.