Searching for several objects matching their full designation

I am planning to write a Plug-in which will collect unit names from some external application and should find (and lately manipulate) corresponding objects (Units) in EB. From external application I will get a list with of full designation names for each unit. Designation will be multi level, for example: "+AE01+C1+K1".

What would be the most effective way for searching these objects in EB taking into account that it can happen that corresponding objects (units) in EB are structured in branches with folders in between.