Patent ID: 7784047

Claim:
A computer-readable storage medium containing instructions stored thereon, which when read and executed by a plurality of computers cause the plurality of computers to perform steps comprising: receiving, at an administrative server, an MBean definition file in a markup language format; generating, at the administrative server, an MBean archive file from the MBean definition file; sending the archive file from the administrative server to a managed server in a management domain, wherein the management domain is a collection of distributed servers that are managed as a unit, and wherein the managed server contains a logical canonical server used as a proxy for accessing an MBean server located on the managed server; using the archive file to instantiate a custom MBean upon the managed server, said custom MBean being customized for the managed server; receiving a request for the MBean at a server residing in the management domain; determining a scope of the MBean, said scope having been specified in the MBean definition file or on a specific instance upon creation of said MBean, wherein the scope of the MBean is set to be either server-specific for the managed server or shared in the management domain, wherein the scope of the MBean is the set of locations at which the MBean is available, such that the MBean is unavailable to servers located outside of said scope of said MBean, wherein the managed server contains copies of the MBeans scoped server-specific to the managed server, and wherein the administration server contains copies of MBeans shared in the management domain and further contains an MBean index of all server-specific MBeans and all shareable MBeans; handling said request by said a server in the management domain; wherein if the MBean is of server-specific scope and unavailable to the server receiving the request, said server receiving the request invokes a method to access the MBean index and accesses the logical canonical server corresponding to the managed server that the server-specific MBean resides on based on said providing a custom management capability through the MBean; and wherein applications requiring an enhanced isolation levels for MBean data are served using an MBean delegate, wherein the MBean delegate is identical to the MBean at creation, wherein after creation, the MBean delegate can be changed directly, wherein if the MBean is changed after creation of the MBean delegate, the MBean delegate is automatically updated with the changes unless the modified value caused by the changes has been specifically altered in the MBean delegate.