Patent ID: 7203937

Claim:
A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, performs a method comprising: receiving an indication of a specific role designation for a target computing system; acquiring and interpreting feature descriptions associated with the indicated specific role designation for the target computing system, wherein the interpreted feature descriptions include directions formatted in “plain-text” runtime interpretable data and include an “identity” indicator; based upon the “identity” indicator, obtaining authorization to perform installation or configuration of new software components and updating, reconfiguration, or removal of existing software components; analyzing the target computing system; based upon the indicated specific role designation and interpretation of the feature descriptions, determining all of the following: whether to install and configure any new software components and if so, selecting which ones; whether to update any existing software components and if so, selecting which ones; whether to reconfigure any existing software components and if so, selecting which ones; whether to remove any existing components and if so, selecting which ones; responsive to the determining and selecting: installing and configuring new software components selected for such; updating existing software components selected for such; reconfiguring existing software components selected for such; removing existing software components selected for such.