1. A computer-readable medium holding executable instructions for configuring a distributed computing environment, the medium holding one or more instructions for: receiving a configuration, the configuration specifying: a cluster configuration for the distributed computing environment, where: the cluster configuration is accessible using an identifier, the cluster configuration operates in a hierarchical arrangement of cluster configurations, and the hierarchical arrangement of cluster configurations allows the configuration to inherit a characteristic from a hierarchical level that is an ancestor with respect to the level of the hierarchy at which the cluster configuration resides when the cluster configuration inherits the characteristic; and storing the cluster configuration, where the stored cluster configuration is accessible using the identifier.