Performance metric collection and automated analysis

A metric monitoring and analysis system, comprising:

• a plurality of dynamic sampling agents, each dynamic sampling agent being located in a system element containing a metric of interest for monitoring and analysis and including
• at least one plurality of data collectors for collecting metric data representing system operations from a plurality of system sources,
• a threshold generator for determining a dynamic metric threshold range for each metric over successive time periods,
• an alarm condition detector indicating a metric alarm event by
• generating a metric threshold alarm indicator when a corresponding metric value deviates outside the dynamic threshold range, and
• a deviation tracker for generating an alarm severity score for each metric alarm event, and
• a single service management platform receiving alarm indicators and severity scores from the dynamic sampling agents and including
• an alarm analyzer performing a root cause analysis identifying a basic cause of a system alarm condition by at least one of
• correlation of grouped metrics with alarm conditions, and
• forensic analysis of selected secondary forensic data items recorded upon the occurrence of at least one or more selected alarm conditions.