1. A method for intelligently responding to hardware failures so as to optimize system performance, the method comprising: monitoring utilization of hardware in a system; monitoring software components running on said hardware in said system to assess a context of said software components running on said hardware; detecting a hardware failure; analyzing said hardware failure to determine a type of said hardware failure; analyzing properties of a workload running on said failed hardware, wherein said workload running on said failed hardware comprises an amount of processing that said failed hardware has been given to do at a given time, wherein said properties of said workload running on said hardware comprise creating an additional image of a pattern of said workload running on said hardware and placing said image of said pattern of said workload in a hot-standby mode in response to said hardware appearing likely to fan; and responding, by a processor, to said detected hardware failure based on said type of said hardware failure, said properties of said workload running on said failed hardware, and said context of said software running on said failed hardware.