Patent ID: 8055744
Filing Date: 2011-11-08
Classification: G06F,G06Q,Y02P

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: grouping a plurality of resources into a plurality of groups, wherein one group may be included in another in the plurality of groups, and wherein the plurality of resources and the plurality of groups comprise items; maintaining a group membership definition for each group of the plurality of groups, wherein the group membership definition comprises one or more resources, one or more groups, and one or more filters, wherein the one or more filters comprise operations that are applicable to the one or more groups and the one or more resources; recursively determining, by a processor, via processing of the group membership definition, valid items in a group of the plurality of groups by excluding those items that have already been determined to be included in the group, wherein timestamps are maintained in association with creation of membership lists and for modifications to the plurality of groups and generation of the recursively determined valid items, wherein the recursively determining further comprises: determining whether an item is one of a selected resource; determining whether the item is one of a selected group; determining whether the item is one of a selected filter; in response to determining that the item is the selected resource, determining whether the selected resource is in an already included list that stores all previously processed items; in response to determining that the item is the selected group, determining whether the selected group is in the already included list; and in response to determining that the item is the selected filter, determining whether the selected filter is in the already included list, wherein all items that are in the already included list are excluded from being added to a membership list that accumulates the valid items; and determining by using the timestamps whether to perform an additional recursive determination for new valid items for a plurality of requests on the plurality of groups, wherein a plurality of requests for actions against a selected group to resolve group membership is resolved once and subsequently a statically stored membership list is used until a selected timestamp is modified, and wherein: in response to determining that a first group contains a second group and a first resource, wherein the second group contains a third group and a second resource, wherein the third group is the same as the first group, and the second resource is the same as the first resource, removing the third group and the second resource from the first group.