An injection system and method for monitoring and controlling task execution in a distributed computer system. The distributed computing environment is comprised of a plurality of computing nodes for executing an application, wherein the application is divided into tasks that are executed within containers on each of the nodes, and the tasks process vectors comprised of one or more data elements. A control plug-in injected into a specified container for execution with the tasks, wherein the control plug-in profiles footprint information for a targeted vector operated on by the tasks executed within the specified container.