19. The apparatus of claim 17 , wherein the operations comprise: 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 rule to data corresponding to the network, 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.
21. The apparatus of claim 19 , wherein at least one query fragment, the query, or both the query and the at least one query fragment comprises: the path expression for an identified path from a configuration item to an attribute of a related configuration item; a threshold value; and an operator for comparing the threshold value to the attribute.