Patent ID: 8214826

Claim:
A method for targeting an action in a distributed system comprising a plurality of destination nodes, the method comprising: generating, by a console in the distributed system, a criteria set for a target action, wherein the target action is to be applied only to destination nodes satisfying the criteria set, wherein the criteria set omits explicit identification of any of the plurality of destination nodes; receiving local node lists from a plurality of intermediate nodes in the distributed system, wherein each of the plurality of intermediate nodes is coupled to at least one managed node within a plurality of managed nodes serviced by the plurality of intermediate nodes in the distributed system; generating a master node list from the local node lists, wherein the master node list comprises a list of the plurality of managed nodes serviced by the plurality of intermediate nodes and a set of attributes for each of the plurality of managed nodes; applying the criteria set to the master node list to identify a plurality of destination nodes within the plurality of managed nodes that satisfy the criteria set based on the set of attributes; identifying a subset of intermediate nodes within the plurality of intermediate nodes that service the plurality of destination nodes; and transmitting the criteria set from the console to the subset of intermediate nodes, wherein each of the subset of intermediate nodes is coupled to at least one of the plurality of destination nodes to be tested for satisfaction of the criteria set, wherein each intermediate node within the subset of intermediate nodes possesses information sufficient to determine whether each of the at least one of the plurality of destination nodes satisfies the criteria set.