Once relations have been defined, the relation service allows you to do searches based on the association of objects that the relations represent. The following operations perform queries on the relations:
findAssociatedMBeans: Returns a list of all object names referenced in any relation where a given object name appears; each of these object names is mapped to the list of relation identifiers where the two MBeans are related, since the pair can be related through different relation instances.
Two optional parameters let you specify a relation type and role name. When either or both of these are specified, the only relations to be considered are those of the given type and/or where the given object name appears in the named role.
findReferencingRelations: Takes an object name and returns the list of relation identifiers where it is referenced; each identifier is mapped to the list of roles in which the corresponding MBean appears in that relation; again, you can specify the relation type and/or role name in which the given MBean must appear.
getReferencedMBeans: Returns a list of all MBeans currently in a given relation; their object names are mapped to the role names where they are referenced, since the same MBean can appear in more than one role of the same relation.
findRelationsOfType: Returns the list of identifiers of all relations that were created or added with a given relation type.
getRelationTypeName: This method is the inverse of the previous, returning the relation type name of the relation with a given identifier.