Patent ID: 8112451

Claim:
A configuration management database system stored on a non-transitory computer readable memory in a computer system having at least one processor, comprising: a plurality of configuration items, each of said configuration items including at least one property relating to a component of an information technology (IT) system, wherein the at least one property relating to the component of the IT system is a property that corresponds to run time performance of the component within the IT system; a plurality of intensional category definitions that provide dynamic categorization of said plurality of configuration items, wherein each of said intensional category definitions includes a predicate that is operable to identify an input one of said configuration items as a member of a first category based on said at least one property of said input one of said configuration items, wherein, for a change in the at least one property in the input one of the configuration items, at least one of the predicates of the plurality of intensional category definitions identifies whether the change indicates a recategorization of the input one of the configuration items into at least a second category that is different from the first category; and at least one pre-computed category membership data structure to support efficient processing of at least one query, wherein the pre-computed category membership data structure is dynamically recomputed, wherein for the change in the at least one property in the input one of the configuration items indicating the recategorization of the input one of the configuration items to the second category according to the at least one of the predicates, the recategorization of the input one of the configuration items is updated in the pre-computed category membership data structure by the dynamic recomputing, and wherein the dynamic recomputing of the pre-computed category membership data structure is performed automatically in response to the change in the at least one property of the input one of the configuration items.