The present invention is a system or method for assisting in the
maintenance and servicing of computers. The system, for example,
comprises a cluster database containing information relating to one or
more computer clusters, the information relating to each cluster
comprising one or more cluster descriptions and one or more
representations of configuration information values that characterize
typical computer members of the cluster, and also a tracker database
containing configuration information values gathered from and relating to
one or more computers. The system further comprises a computer and
cluster comparison routine having access to the cluster and tracker
databases that compares one or more of the representations of
configuration information values relating to one or more of the clusters
to one or more of the corresponding configuration information values
gathered from at least one given computer and that then indicates how
closely the given computer's configuration conforms with the
configuration of typical computer members of the one or more clusters.