1. A method for operating a computer system having a plurality of computing nodes, the method comprising: executing a first application on a first computing node of the plurality of computing nodes; collecting trace data into a first trace buffer coupled to the first computing node by monitoring the execution of the first application using a trace generation module coupled to the first computing node; sending a trace transfer request event to a second computing node of the plurality of computing nodes after collecting a portion of the trace data in the first trace buffer; and recording the portion of trace data on the second computing node by transferring the portion of trace data from the first trace buffer to a recording buffer in the second computing node in response to the transfer request by performing memory mapped read transfers initiated by the second computing node, wherein the first trace buffer is memory mapped into an address space of the second computing node.