A system monitoring method and apparatus comprises: collecting periodically status indicator data of a monitored system to generate a status indicator data sequence; selecting predetermined pieces of status indicator data according to data collecting time in a reverse chronological order; determining a category from predetermined categories, the predetermined pieces of status indicator data belonging to the determined category; selecting, from the historical status indicator data, status indicator data belonging to the determined category and obtained in a collection period as characteristic data of the determined category; calculating a predicted value of a status indicator of the system at a predicting moment using the characteristic data; and determining whether the system is abnormal, based on a difference between the calculated predicted value and a true value of the status indicator of the system collected at the predicting moment. The present implementation can accurately find the abnormality of the system rapidly.