1. An apparatus comprising: a server; a non relational database file system coupled to a query request processor program running on said server via an access manager computer program also running on said server, said access manager computer program functioning to receive time-series performance metric data measurements of the values of attributes of resources in a system being monitored and receive configuration data, said performance metric data measurements and configuration data being gathered by probes coupled to said resources in said system being monitored and converting at least said performance metric data into Unicode and storing said Unicode encoded performance metric data and configuration data in files in said non relational database file system in such a way as to encode the metadata of each performance metric data measurement in the location in said file system where each performance metric data measurement is stored, said file system having an organization which stores metadata defining the date and time of collection of each performance metric data measurement and the resource from which it was collected in the organization of the file system itself, said server coupled to receive web requests containing search queries via a web request controller, said web request controller forwarding said web requests to said query request processor, said server also coupled to a results cache where encoded performance metric data located as a result of processing said search queries by said query request processor is stored; and wherein said query request processor program is structured to control said server so as to carry out query request processing for analysis of said Unicode encoded performance metric data using regular expressions encoded in said search queries.