25. An apparatus for rebuilding the state of a monitored computer system, comprising: a first data storage storing a static tree structure representing a general computer system; a second data storage storing component information indicating hardware and software components of the monitored computer system; a monitoring computer system, coupled to the first and second data storage, operable to generate a host state of the monitored computer system according to the static tree structure and the component information, and a third data storage coupled to the monitoring computer system, storing each generated host state of the monitored computer system for a predetermined period of time, the third data storage thereby holding a history of host states for the monitored computer system.
26. The apparatus as recited in claim 25 wherein the static tree structure includes element types in a fixed hierarchical relationship, the element types representing the hardware and software components of the monitored computer system.