Patent ID: 7770124

Claim:
A computer management system stored on a tangible computer-readable medium is configured to interact with management information stored in a management information source and to display a dialog-related user interface presentation on a monitor screen, the computer management system comprising: description language content which describes at least one aspect of the computer management system, the description language content created by a user, the description language content configured to adapt general purpose computer resources to implement user-selected management-related services by invoking generic resource content specifically referenced by the description language content, wherein the description language content comprises console-related description language content and dialog-related description language content, wherein the console-related description language content is configured to query target functionality to extract management information from one or more stores provided by the target functionality, wherein the management information is used to construct nodes establishing boundaries of the management system, the nodes to be displayed in a scope pane of the user interface, and wherein the management information is further used to provide detailed information about the nodes, the detailed information to be displayed within a result pane of the user interface presentation, and wherein the dialog-related description language content is configured to provide descriptive information to adapt general purpose user interface building blocks to provide specific dialog-related user interface presentations; generic resource content expressed in a machine-readable code language for performing at least one generic task that is applicable to a plurality of applications of the computer management system; and functionality for implementing the computer management system based on a combination of declarative information specified in the description language content and generic resources provided by the generic resource content, wherein the description language content tailors the generic resource content to provide the computer management system with the ability to retrieve and modify configuration data for a plurality of computer systems, wherein the computer management system provides management information corresponding to at least one node, and wherein the description language content describes aspects of the computer management system on a per-node basis, and wherein at least one part of the description language content corresponding to a child node is supplied by description language content associated with a parent or ancestor node.