Coming late to the thread on this one, but after reading through it sounds interesting.
While not a 'coder', I've got some background in data processing and would be interested in helping out the OP, if help is wanted. Where are you planning on running the data collector?
baldpope,
I have a pretty substantial amount of old servers and data miners laying around from previous work as a data center manager. i was able to keep a lot of stuff that the companies were throwing away. So for now i am running the data collection locally on my own local network, although i have several static IP's and T1 & T3 lines so i could easily make it accessible remotely. Feel free to message me in your spare time, i am always looking for a helping hand from someone with experience. especially in data processing as that is the bulk of what the project is about.