Allocating resource discovery and identification processes among a plurality of management tools and resources in a distributed and heterogeneous information technology (IT) management system by providing at least one authoritative manageable resource having minimal or no responsibility for reporting its identity, minimal or no responsibility for advertising any lifecycle-related creation event for the resource, and minimal or no responsibility for advertising any lifecycle-related destruction event for the resource. A service oriented architecture (SOA) defines one or more services needed to manage the resource within the management system. A component model defines one or more interfaces and one or more interactions to be implemented by the manageable resource within the management system.