1. A manager engine computer coupled to a plurality of managed nodes located in one of a plurality of managed sites comprising a network, the manager engine computer communicating with the plurality of managed nodes and storing data representative of network state information in a relational database, the network state information being organized as a series of relationships among managed elements of the network, the manager engine computer comprising: at least one processor; computing memory communicatively coupled to the processor, the computing memory having stored therein executable instructions for a database operable to store and retrieve data, said database comprising: a. a managed element table, the managed element table comprising data about managed elements (ME) of the network, the data comprising information about at least one physical element of the network and at least one of a software application and a software subroutine of the network, the data comprising information about at least one base managed element, the base managed element being a pre-selected management object for building a management group, and the data comprising information about: a derived managed element, where the derived managed element references a specific instance of the base managed element and provides at least one property related to how the base management element is used by an application; an application managed element, where the application managed element comprises an application that can be executed and that references other managed elements; a resource managed element, the resource managed element controlling a set of resources that provide the same service and comprising rules that allow a manager engine to determine if redundant resources are above or below a pre-selected level; a reference managed element, the reference managed element allowing the user to access the management engine in order to determine a type of information that requires management; and an external interface managed element, the external interface managed element adapted to identify external interfaces and adapted to calculate the location of at least one implicit state propagation point in the network; b. a managed element relationship table, the managed element relationship table comprising data about possible relationships among the managed elements of the network; and c. a managed element type table, the managed element type table comprising data representative of type information for the managed elements of the network; d. policy information defining policies for operating the network; and e. a message class table comprising data representative of a class of messages used in connection with the manager engine computer communicating with the plurality of managed nodes; and a management software component communicatively coupled with said database, said management software component operating to retrieve and store data representative of the network system in said database, said management software component further operating to: retrieve data from the database; determine dependencies between managed elements of the database using the retrieved data from the database; identify a source of a problem in the network using the retrieved data from the database; retrieve policy information from the database, the policy information specifying policies for each of a plurality of managed elements; and determine from the retrieved policy information that a change in the network violates a policy for operating the network.