1. An apparatus for testing compliance of a computing system, the apparatus comprising a processor and a memory storing executable instructions that in response to execution by the processor cause the apparatus to at least: receive a collection of rules in a first set of markup-language statements, the collection of rules representing a configuration benchmark against which a computing system is to be tested for compliance, the computing system having interconnected components; parse the collection of rules to obtain test references to tests and comparison values used therein, the tests being defined in a second set of markup-language statements, with references to at least some of the interconnected components and their attributes as represented in a database organized as an object model of the computing system, the object model expressing physical and functional relationships among the interconnected components; and invoke an interpreter with the test references and comparison values to perform the tests defined in the second set of markup-language statements using the comparison values, performance of the tests including the apparatus being caused to: access the database using the references to the at least some of the interconnected components and their attributes to obtain actual values of their attributes; and perform the tests to generate results based on comparisons of the actual values and corresponding ones of the comparison values, the results indicating whether the computing system is compliant with the configuration benchmark.