1. A method of measuring performance and capacity of a network, the method comprising: executing, by a probe control system, instructions included in a web services definition language file to generate a control message that includes regular expressions associated with controlling a state of a probe in monitoring network elements of the network; transmitting, by the probe control system, the control message to the probe; receiving, by a monitoring system, performance data associated with the network elements from the probe, the performance data collected by the probe based on the regular expressions included in the control message; analyzing, by the monitoring system, the performance data in order to determine information associated with the performance and capacity of the network; and providing, by the monitoring system, the determined information associated with the performance and capacity of the network.