A system and method embodied in a monitoring engine configured to create plug-ins to define functionality including rule-based configuration syntax adapted to intuitively and automatically launch the plug-ins as necessary in a software-based infrastructure or environment. The monitoring engine also includes a capability for tracing multi-threaded asynchronous logging onto a single file, by assigning a unique identification to each thread or rule initiated and facilitating each log according to a specific format and to formulate a combination of all the different thread identifications into a master unique identification that is easily traceable through an entire log file.