A monitoring process for a NUMA system collects data from multiple monitored threads executing in different nodes of the system. The monitoring process executes on different processors in different nodes. The monitoring process intelligently collects data from monitored threads according to the node it which it is executing to reduce the proportion of inter-node data accesses. Preferably, the monitoring process has the capability to specify a node to which it should be dispatched next to the dispatcher, and traverses the nodes while collecting data from threads associated with the node in which the monitor is currently executing. By intelligently associating the data collection with the node of the monitoring process, the frequency of inter-node data accesses for purposes of collecting data by the monitoring process is reduced, increasing execution efficiency.