Abstract: Techniques and mechanisms are disclosed that enable a data collection system to adaptively control collection of data from one or more external data sources. At a high level, adaptively controlling collection of data from external data sources may include collecting performance information related to one or more data collection nodes and, in response to analyzing the collected performance information, adapting rates at which the data collection nodes send data collection requests to external data sources. Data collection performance information generally may include, but is not limited to, network traffic data, error messages generated by external data sources and/or data collection nodes, computing device performance information, and any other types of information related to a data collection node's ability to collect data from external data sources.