reside on a single computer however it is also possible to first define the transaction to be monitored with a configuration manager that is running on one computer and then distribute that transaction and any associated policy to agents on other stand alone computers which do not contain the configuration manager themselves in a network environment it is possible to have an agent running on each network node as illustrated in the embodiment of fig1 however such an arrangement is not necessary rather the agents can be located at a central location and from there instruct the central dispatcher which might also be located at the central location or on the individual nodes to initiate the monitoring procedures by establishing the watch functions in the memory space of the application programs to be monitored thus as long as the various modules can communicate with each other as necessary they can be located anywhere within the networked system it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that the application can be embodied in other specific forms without departing from the spirit or essential characteristics thereof for example although the disclosed embodiment of the invention has been described in the context of a computer which.