A system includes a security management system for a plurality of managed products. The security management system stores configuration data for managed products and managed nodes in a directory. Configuration data is stored in the directory in the form of configuration objects and setting objects. A revision history of a configuration object and/or a setting object can be maintained. Inheritance between configuration objects is supported so that a configuration inheritance chain is available. To determine an effective configuration at a point in time, a parent-child inheritance merge process is used. To assist the parent-child inheritance process, name attributes and collision resolution mode attributes are used.