Data center monitoring and management operation including an extensible data forwarding operation

1. A computer-implementable method for performing a data center management and monitoring operation, comprising:

identifying data forwarder configuration information for a plurality of data forwarders, the forwarder configuration information including scheduling information, each of the plurality of data forwarders having knowledge of how to communicate with a particular recipient;

scheduling collection of data from a data source according to the scheduling information, the data source comprising a data center asset contained within a data center;

collecting data from a data source based upon the scheduling, the collecting using the forwarder configuration information to identify the data to be collected;

formatting the data collected from the data source according to the data forwarder configuration information to provide formatted data; and,

forwarding the formatted data to a recipient.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

the scheduling includes one or more of an incremental data transfer schedule and a full data transfer schedule.

3. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

maintaining a marker for data collected according to the incremental data transfer schedule.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein:

the marker is incremented for each incremental collection of data.

5. The method of claim 2 , further comprising:

applying a hashing algorithm on for each incremental collection of data.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

using the hashing value to detect changes in incrementally collected data.

7. A system comprising:

a processor;

a data bus coupled to the processor;

a data center asset client module; and,

a non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium embodying computer program code, the non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium being coupled to the data bus, the computer program code interacting with a plurality of computer operations and comprising instructions executable by the processor and configured for:

identifying data forwarder configuration information for a plurality of data forwarders, the forwarder configuration information including scheduling information, each of the plurality of data forwarders having knowledge of how to communicate with a particular recipient;

scheduling collection of data from a data source according to the scheduling information, the data source comprising a data center asset contained within a data center;

collecting data from a data source based upon the scheduling, the collecting using the forwarder configuration information to identify the data to be collected;

formatting the data collected from the data source according to the data forwarder configuration information to provide formatted data; and,

forwarding the formatted data to a recipient.

8. The system of claim 7 , wherein the instructions executable by the processor are further configured for:

the scheduling includes one or more of an incremental data transfer schedule and a full data transfer schedule.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the instructions executable by the processor are further configured for:

maintaining a marker for data collected according to the incremental data transfer schedule.

10. The system of claim 9 , wherein:

the marker is incremented for each incremental collection of data.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the instructions executable by the processor are further configured for:

applying a hashing algorithm on for each incremental collection of data.

12. The system of claim 11 , wherein the instructions executable by the processor are further configured for:

using the hashing value to detect changes in incrementally collected data.

13. A non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium embodying computer program code, the computer program code comprising computer executable instructions configured for:

identifying data forwarder configuration information for a plurality of data forwarders, the forwarder configuration information including scheduling information, each of the plurality of data forwarders having knowledge of how to communicate with a particular recipient;

scheduling collection of data from a data source according to the scheduling information, the data source comprising a data center asset contained within a data center;

collecting data from a data source based upon the scheduling, the collecting using the forwarder configuration information to identify the data to be collected;

formatting the data collected from the data source according to the data forwarder configuration information to provide formatted data; and,

forwarding the formatted data to a recipient.

14. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured for:

the scheduling includes one or more of an incremental data transfer schedule and a full data transfer schedule.

15. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured for:

maintaining a marker for data collected according to the incremental data transfer schedule.

16. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 15 , wherein:

the marker is incremented for each incremental collection of data.

17. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 14 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured for:

applying a hashing algorithm on for each incremental collection of data.

18. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 17 , wherein the computer executable instructions are further configured for:

using the hashing value to detect changes in incrementally collected data.

19. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein:

the computer executable instructions are deployable to a client system from a server system at a remote location.

20. The non-transitory, computer-readable storage medium of claim 13 , wherein:

the computer executable instructions are provided by a service provider to a user on an on-demand basis.