A hierarchal structure manipulation system may include a nested table generation module to generate nested tables representing hierarchal relationships of computing systems in a distributed computing environment. A hierarchal structure manipulation module may access at least one nested table to manipulate a hierarchal structure represented by the nested table. The hierarchal structure manipulation module may use a generic algebraic specification to manipulate the hierarchal structure represented by the nested table. The generic algebraic specification may provide a generic abstraction across a plurality of the computing systems in the distributed computing environment.