7. The method of claim 1 , comprising: accumulating query fragments associated with the rule scope; accumulating query fragments associated with the desired state; and merging the accumulated query fragments into a query for applying the compliance rule to data corresponding to the IT infrastructure, wherein at least one query fragment, the query, or both the query and the at least one query fragment, includes the path expression for one of the identified paths.
8. The method of claim 7 , wherein the rule scope comprises at least one conditional expression with configuration items satisfying the at least one conditional expression being considered as within the rule scope, wherein the at least one conditional expression includes the path expression for one of the identified paths.