1. A computer-implemented method comprising: providing configuration options for one or more rules regarding placement of data objects within a system topology of a distributed storage grid comprising a plurality of storage devices associated with a plurality of isolated administrative domains, each data object being assigned to at least one isolated administrative domain of the plurality of isolated administrative domains, the one or more rules being associated with the at least one isolated administrative domain of the plurality of isolated administrative domains, and the configuration options being based on the system topology, the configuration options comprising one or more user interface elements indicative of data storage capabilities associated with the plurality of storage devices; receiving, for each of the one or more rules, one or more criteria for comparison with a data object metadata value, an object duration value, a data object status value, or a value contained in contents of a data object; receiving, for each of the one or more rules, one or more placement constraints, each placement constraint specifying how a particular data object is to be placed within the system topology and a length of time that the particular data object is to be stored, the length of time being specified relative to a time of data object creation, a time of data object access, or a time stored in metadata associated with the particular data object; creating a criteria data structure that describes the one or more criteria in a form that can be used to compare against data objects; creating a placement constraints data structure that describes the one or more placement constraints in a form that can be used to match against the system topology; incorporating the criteria data structure and the placement constraints data structure with one or more previously existing rules to form updated rules; distributing the updated rules across one or more of the plurality of storage devices; triggering processing of data objects that are affected by the updated rules; associating a dirty state with the data objects that are affected by the updated rules; determining a proposed action to modify a placement of a data object associated with the dirty state by at least matching the data object against the updated rules based at least partially on the criteria data structure incorporated in the updated rules; and executing the proposed action to modify the placement of the data object repeatedly while the data object is associated with the dirty state indicating that further changes to the placement of the data object are required to place the data object within the system topology based upon the placement constraints data structure.