17. A non-transitory medium bearing instructions to cause a machine to perform operations comprising: obtaining information from a device to obtain an actual status of the device; comparing the actual status of the device to a prior status of the device, the device initially being associated with a first group that corresponds to the prior status; determining that the actual status is different from the prior status based on the comparing, wherein, initially, no group exists that corresponds to the actual status; consulting a rule to determine to create a second group that corresponds to the actual status of the device, the rule for triggering group creation when no group exists that corresponds to the actual status; creating the second group in accordance with the rule, the second group being part of a group hierarchy comprised of multiple groups at different levels in the group hierarchy; automatically disassociating the device from the first group and automatically associating the device with the second group; sending a notification to the second group; and sending the notification to one or more groups that are above the second group in the group hierarchy based on failure to receive acknowledgement from the second group.
17. A non-transitory medium bearing instructions to cause a machine to perform operations comprising: obtaining information from a device to obtain an actual status of the device; comparing the actual status of the device to a prior status of the device, the device initially being associated with a first group that corresponds to the prior status; determining that the actual status is different from the prior status based on the comparing, wherein, initially, no group exists that corresponds to the actual status; consulting a rule to determine to create a second group that corresponds to the actual status of the device, the rule for triggering group creation when no group exists that corresponds to the actual status; creating the second group in accordance with the rule, the second group being part of a group hierarchy comprised of multiple groups at different levels in the group hierarchy; automatically disassociating the device from the first group and automatically associating the device with the second group; sending a notification to the second group; and sending the notification to one or more groups that are above the second group in the group hierarchy based on failure to receive acknowledgement from the second group. 23. The non-transitory medium of claim 17 , wherein the group hierarchy comprises a static root group and one or more sub-groups, the second group being among the one or more sub-groups.