1. In a computing environment, a method of querying data stores in a federation of data stores, the method comprising: accessing a first search predicate, the first search predicate constructed with one or more nested logical AND, OR, or NOT operands; normalizing the first search predicate to a normalized search predicate that is logically equivalent to the first search predicate, and wherein the normalized search predicate includes at least three and up to four levels, wherein all top or first level operands are logically ORed, wherein all second level operands below the top level operands are logically ANDed, wherein at the third level, all third level operands below the second level operands are at least one of parameters or logical NOTs, and at the fourth or bottom level any fourth level operands below a third level logical NOT operand at the third level are parameters; and using the normalized search predicate, searching a plurality of data stores in a federation of data stores for information by searching different data stores for at least two or more of the top level operands.