Patent ID: 6993771

Claim:
A system for managing software components in a distributed computing environment, the system comprising: a distributed tracking system for tracking when a software component changes state and for providing a state change notification of a change in state of the tracked software component; and a property notification system for providing a property notification to the software component when a property of another software component is set wherein software components of the system use services of both the tracking system and the property notification system; wherein said tracking includes: receiving by the system a request from a client to track a state of the object; watching the state of the object to detect when the object enters the up state and when the object enters the up state, first performing at least one behavior that is specified by the client to be performed when the object enters the up state and when the object is in the up state, monitoring the state of the object by the system to detect when the object enters the down state; and monitoring the state of the object to detect when the object enters the down state, and when the object enters the down state, second performing at least one behavior that is specified by the client to be performed when the object enters the down state.