1. A maintenance apparatus for analyzing a system under test, which system under test has a plurality of operationally interdependent components, at least one of which is spatially disjunct from the remainder of said components, comprising: control means; a plurality of data collecting means, each said data collecting means being installable in said operationally interdependent components for measuring predefined parameters at said operationally interdependent components, absent direct connection to said control means while said data collection means are installed in said operationally interdependent components, each of which data collecting means comprises: means for determining a value for at least one predetermined parameter at each of a plurality of points in time, means for storing a plurality of sets of data, each said set of data being indicative of each said determined value of each said predetermined parameter at a one of said plurality of points in time, means for temporally enabling said determining means simultaneously with said determining means located in others of said data collecting means independent of said control means, means for transmitting a plurality of said sets of said collected data to said control means; wherein said control means comprises: means for storing each said set of collected data received from said plurality of data collecting means, and means for analyzing said system under test using said stored sets of data to identify performance problems in said system under test.