Physical resource life-cycle in a template based orchestration of end-to-end service provisioning

An apparatus comprising:

• an input device;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• receive, via the input device, a first user input requesting that a state of a physical resource be modified from an unmanaged state to a managed state;
• responsive to receiving the first user input and determining that the physical resource does not include any child resources in a maintenance state:
• modify the state of the physical resource from the unmanaged state to the managed state;
• automatically include the physical resource in one or more of a plurality of resource pools having criteria matching attributes of the physical resource;
• and
• while the state of the physical resource is the managed state, assign the physical resource to one or more virtual contexts.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions encoded thereon which, when executed by a computing device, causes the computing device to:

• receive, via the input device, a first user input requesting that a state of a physical resource be modified from an unmanaged state to a managed state;
• responsive to receiving the first user input and determining that the physical resource does not include any child resources in a maintenance state:
• modify the state of the physical resource from the unmanaged state to the managed state;
• automatically include the physical resource in one or more of a plurality of resource pools having criteria matching attributes of the physical resource;
• and
• while the state of the physical resource is the managed state, assign the physical resource to one or more virtual contexts.