1. A computer-implemented meta-application system for monitoring and analyzing the operation of a deployment of a software application, comprising: a computer system comprising one or more computers, said computer system programmed to implement at least: a monitoring component that collects data values of each of a plurality of state metrics associated with the deployment of the software application; a repository that stores a plurality of rules, at least some of which map respective combinations of states associated with the state metrics to corresponding problems; and an analysis engine that programmatically detects instances of said problems, at least in-part, by using the rules to analyze the state metric data values collected by the monitoring component; wherein at least one of the rules is configured to be used by the analysis engine to generate a virtual circuit comprising: a plurality of atomic gates each configured to be used by the analysis engine to test for whether collected data values for one or more of the state metrics indicate the existence of one of a plurality of possible conditions of the deployment of the software application, and to produce an output bead if the condition exists within the deployment; and a plurality of operator gates each having one or more inputs, each of the inputs configured to receive output beads from one of the atomic gates or from another one of the operator gates, each operator gate configured to be used by the analysis engine to test for a condition associated with received beads and to produce an output bead if the condition is met; wherein the rule is configured to be applied by the analysis engine to automatically detect the existence of a problem within the deployment based on output beads generated from use of the operator gates.