In general, the present invention allows one to define both a hierarchy with one or more peers and no parents (e.g., one or more blades and no chassis) and a hierarchy with one or more peers and a parent (e.g., one or more blades and a chassis) as long as the relationships are valid. Rather than relying on a user's a priori knowledge of the hierarchical relationships, this invention allows a user to select any starting point and then drive in any desired direction. Despite this flexibility, the invention still allows rules for permissible relationships to be enforced. Thus, driving is limited by the relationships extant in the underlying data, or the known combining rules.