Dynamic association of application workload tiers to infrastructure elements in a cloud computing environment

A method for dynamic multi-tier application infrastructure component association, the method comprising:

• loading into memory of a computer a pattern configured for processing by a pattern engine executing in the memory of the computer, the pattern comprising a table of the components, the table comprising the table comprising a column of data fields, each data field identifying one of the components of the corresponding multi-tier application and a different column of different data fields, each different data field reflecting a corresponding tier label referring to specific virtual machines of specific tiers of the multi-tier application into which each identified one of the components is to be deployed and yet another column of further different fields, each of the further different fields identifying a tag for selected ones of the components, the tag comprising a textual reference to a grouping of components to be deployed together;
• and,
• processing the pattern by the pattern engine in connection with different layers of an n-tier architecture of a multi-tier application, each of the layers having a corresponding different tier label providing a textual description of a different logical tier of the multi-tier application, the pattern engine processing the pattern by deploying the individual components of the pattern to one of a public Internet layer, a Web layer or a data layer of the n-tier architecture corresponding to one of the tier labels that has been associated with each individual one of the components by loading a first one of the components in the table of the pattern, identifying a corresponding tier label for the first one of the components and also a presence of a tag, and if the tag corresponds to a pre-specified tag, deploying the first one of the components but otherwise not deploying the first one of the components, and repeating the loading, identifying and deploying for each other one of the components in the table of the pattern.