1. A method of identifying at least one exceptional managed computer amongst a set of comparable managed computers, the method comprising: selecting managed computers with each of the managed computers having a plurality of system configuration attributes; selecting parameterizations relating to one or more settings of the system configuration attributes of the managed computers; determining patterns that characterize the parameterizations and the system configuration attributes that are common among a set of the managed computers that are comparable; comparing substantially each of the managed computers to substantially each of the patterns; and identifying, based on the comparing, at least one exceptionally managed computer that has a parameterization that deviates from the parameterizations of the set of the managed computers that are comparable; wherein the patterns are determined by a supervised machine learning algorithm.