Approaches are described for capturing illegal and undesired behavior for
network components and for interactions between components. One approach
comprise specifying one or more states and state transitions for one or
more components or interactions between components, wherein at least one
composite state transition is specified, and generating a notification
corresponding to a specified state or state transition when the state or
state transition occurs. These approaches provide a holistic view of the
entire state space of a network or component or component interactions,
and allow undesired or illegal states to be captured in a timely manner.