Patent ID: 7734750

Claim:
A method for providing real-time feedback regarding the effect of applying a policy definition used for management in a computing system, wherein the method comprises the following operations: receiving a policy definition; accessing stored information regarding managed entities in the computing system, wherein the information includes for the managed entities attributes of resources maintained by the managed entities, and wherein the policy definition specifies at least one operation to perform based on a condition with respect to at least one of the attributes of at least one of the resources maintained by at least one of the managed entities; applying the policy definition to the information regarding the managed entities to determine whether the attributes of the resources of the managed entities satisfy the condition of the policy definition; providing real-time feedback regarding the effect of applying the policy definition to the information regarding the managed entities, wherein the effect for the managed entities comprises results of performing the at least one operation with respect to the managed entities whose attribute of the resource satisfies the condition of the policy definition; and displaying, as part of providing the real-time feedback, information on a GUI indicating host machines and filesystems that will be affected if the policy definition is implemented, and displaying a file tree on the GUI wherein resources of the managed entities affected by the policy definition are highlighted.