Object independent scoping in an open system interconnection system

Apparatus within an agent platform, for scoping managed object instances (MOIs) to receive a message from a manager in a manager application, said message specifying a scope portion of a tree containing the MOIs to receive the message, the apparatus comprising:

• a receiver in the agent platform receiving the message from the manager;
• a processing module in the agent platform determining the specified tree portion;
• a recusor in the agent platform recursing through the tree within and adjacent to the tree portion to find which MOIs should receive the message;
• a list generator in the agent platform generating a scope list comprising the MOIs which should receive the message;
• a transmitter sending a message from the agent platform to the MOIs which should receive the message as determined by said processing module, thereby permitting the MOIs to process said message without having to know of the presence or absence of other MOIs;
• wherein the message from the manager is delete;
• and
• the list generator only adds MOIs to the scope list if they are deletable.

A method, resident in an agent platform, for scoping managed object instances (MOIs) within a tree to receive a message from a manager in a manager application, said message specifying the base MOI and the levels below the base MOI containing MOIs to receive the message, the method comprising the steps of:

• receiving the message at the agent platform from the manager;
• parsing the message by the agent platform to find the specified base MOI and levels below the base MOI;
• finding, by the agent platform, the base MOI within the tree;
• recursing down each branch of the tree in the agent platform below the base MOI to the bottom of the tree and unrecursing back up to find which MOIs should receive the message;
• generating in the agent platform a scope list comprising the MOIs which should receive the message;
• sending a message from the agent platform to the MOIs on the scope list;
• sending an error message from the agent platform to the manager if the scope list is empty;
• and
• wherein if the message is delete;
• while recursing through tree, determining which MOIs are flagged undeletable;
• while generating the scope list, omitting MOIs which are flagged undeletable and omitting the children of MOIs which are flagged undeletable.