Managing information technology resources using metadata tags

Abstract

A resource manager is tasked with monitoring and managing information technology (IT) resources in a virtual environment. The IT resources are assigned tags that correspond to conditions that alert the resource manager when to begin actively managing the IT resource. The resource manager may monitor events occurring in the virtual environment that have conditions that match the predefined tags. When such an event occurs, the resource manager identifies an appropriate resource by searching a data store that includes the tags and the corresponding resource. The resource manager then begins to actively manage the resource and assigns the resource to a workload. By tagging the resources, the resource manager does not need to actively manage all of the IT resource in the virtual environment. Furthermore, the tags permit the resource manager to automatically select which resources to actively manage without receiving instructions from a system administrator.