A method, system, and architecture for managing computer systems is provided. A management system employs management objects (MOs) to provide administrators the ability to intuitively express the administrative intent in an information technology (IT) environment, and to act out the administrative intent based on the information gathered by the management system. Managed elements of an IT environment, such as, by way of example, hardware components, software applications, software updates, software distribution policies, configurations, settings, etc., may be expressed as MOs. Actions, such as, by way of example, detect, install/apply, remove, remediate, enumerate, etc., may be associated with the MOs. The management system manages the computer systems by deploying the appropriate MOs and their associated actions onto the computer systems, and performing the actions on the computer systems.