Patent ID: 8180742

Claim:
A method of managing a plurality of objects, each object of the plurality of objects having content, the method comprising: applying a first analytic policy to evaluate content of a first object of the plurality of objects, wherein applying the first analytic policy to evaluate the content of the first object includes identifying presence of a first element in the content of the first object; determining, whether to evaluate a second object of the plurality of objects for relevant data based on whether content of the second object includes a second element, wherein the first element is related to the second element, wherein metadata of the first object indicates the second object for evaluation; based on the evaluation of the contents of the first and second objects, associating the first object with the second object to form an information group if the second element is present in the content of the second object, wherein the information group is associated with an information management policy; generating metadata indicating the information management policy to be applied on the first and second objects; updating the metadata of the first object to indicate the association of the first object with the second object; associating the first object to the generated metadata relating to the information management policy; and storing the generated metadata indicating the association between the first and second objects in a storage device.