1. A method of managing and processing streams of data records over a data communication network linking a plurality of data processors comprising: (a) providing a plurality of stream processing nodes for consuming and generating streams of data records executing on said data processors; (b) providing a central configuration storage for holding current management and configuration data describing the names, relational stream processing operations and definition data of said streams, and for holding configuration and status data of said stream processing nodes, said central configuration storage executing on at least one of said data processors; (c) configuring said stream processing nodes using a user-interface to browse, create and edit configuration information in said central configuration storage, which in turn communicates over said data communication network with said stream processing nodes to effect configuration changes therein required to maintain consistency of configuration data of said stream processing nodes with the configuration data held in said central configuration storage; (d) generating with a translator said relational stream processing operations from relational stream processing source definitions input through said user-interface and then storing said relational stream processing operations in said central configuration storage, which in turn communicates with said stream processing nodes to effect configuration changes therein; (e) communicating with an external data generator to create input streams for processing by said stream processing nodes; (f) communicating with an external data processor to consume output streams of said stream processing nodes; (g) transmitting data records in the form of streams comprising sequences of data records each of which comprises a set of named data fields with each field having a defined data type and holding a data value, said transmitting being from some of said stream processing nodes to others of said stream processing nodes, in order to be further processed according to the definitions of the configuration data held in said central configuration storage; (h) processing streams transmitted to the input of each of said stream processing nodes and creating output streams from said stream processing nodes, said processing being performed within each of said stream processing nodes according to a set of relational stream processing operations by a relational stream engine of each of said stream processing nodes, respectively, and where said relational stream engine has a plug-in management feature to allow dynamic modification and extension of said processing through dynamic loading and unloading executable modules thereto or therefrom; (i) controlling each of said stream processing nodes through a control interface, thereby remotely controlling execution of each of said stream processing nodes; (j) configuring said stream processing nodes through a configuration interface whereby current operating parameters, current relational stream processing operations and currently loaded executable plug-in modules of each of said stream processing nodes can be dynamically modified; and (k) allowing each of said stream processing nodes to interoperate with one another dynamically through said control interface and through said configuration interface in order to control and configure processing of records by each of said stream processing node according to said configuration data stored in said central configuration storage, whereby streams can be retransmitted and redirected from any of said stream processing nodes to any other of said stream processing nodes in order to perform correct processing of records with respect to said configuration data; whereby information processing systems can be constructed by using said stream processing nodes interfacing with said external data generator and interfacing with said external data processor so as to input external streams of records, process said external streams of records using said stream processing nodes according to the relational stream processing operations stored in the central configuration storage, and output resultant record streams.