Patent ID: 7363211

Claim:
A method for modeling a device in a topology, comprising: receiving, from a first user, a definition of a topology type for a device type using a script based interface; obtaining a managed object corresponding to the device, wherein the device is of the device type; defining a managed resource using the managed object; and creating a node for the managed resource in the topology using the definition of the topology type, wherein the definition of the topology type comprises: an attribute component including at least one attribute of the device, wherein the at least one attribute comprises: a value component storing a value of the at least one attribute; an is Key component indicating whether the at least one attribute corresponds to a key that may uniquely identify the managed resource in the topology; and a user specified component indicating whether the at least one attribute must be specified by a second user when the node is at least one selected from a group consisting of created and discovered; and an action component defining at least one action that is performed on the node having the topology type.