A storage area network management application provides a data collection agent that processes storage information concerning storage entities such as file systems in a storage area network environment by receiving a data collection policy identifying storage information to be collected concerning a set of storage entities in a storage area network environment. The agent collects storage information concerning the set of storage entities according to the data collection policy and processes the collected storage information to produce at least one summary record of the storage information for the set of storage entities. The summary record(s) contain a summary of the collected storage information for the set of storage entities calculated according to the data collection policy. The agent transfers the summary record(s) from the data collection agent to a storage management application for presentation to a user of the storage management application. This offloads processing requirements of the management application to the agents.