Defining and implementing configuration standards for facilitating compliance testing in an environment

A method for facilitating compliance testing in an environment is provided. The method includes defining each component as a set of attribute value pairs represented as a configuration item (CI) and defining relationships among the CIs. Configuration Standards for the CIs are defined to include scope identifying CIs to which the Configuration Standards apply and restrictions defining requirements for compliance. Compliance testing is performed for components against a selected Configuration Standards by determining, depending on the scope and the restrictions of each of the selected Configuration Standards, which of the components within the scope of the selected Configuration Standards fails to meet the restrictions of respective ones of the selected Configuration Standards; and by outputting results as a list, which includes each of the components that failed to meet respective ones of the selected Configuration Standards.