MECHANISM FOR NESTED EXPANSION OF DATA COLLECTION FROM ONE COMPUTER TO MULTIPLE COMPUTERS

A system and a process is provided for requesting and obtaining information about Resources on a Cluster. The system utilizes a Multiplex Provider, that may be provided on every Node of the Cluster. The Multiplex Provider facilitates the communication of requests to various Nodes without requiring Providers, at such Nodes, to be Cluster-aware and without requiring a Client to directly communicate the request to every Node. The present invention also includes a scope, specifying a range for which any request may be applied. The scope may be determined utilizing a discovery process, wherein each Node on a Cluster identifies the Providers and Resources associated with the Node. The process also entails capturing the results of a request for information in a tabular format. The tabulation may be specified to include all results of the query, unique results of the query and/or based upon any other desired tabulation.