1. A method of managing an application environment having an operating state according to an operating objective, the application environment having a computing resource with a characteristic representative of an operating state of the computing resource, said method comprising: (a) determining a future operating state of the application environment based on a current status of the characteristic of the computing resource; (b) determining a difference between the future operating state of the application environment and the operating objective; (c) generating a selected set of changes to the application environment for reducing the difference; and (d) repeating steps (a) to (c) to monitor the future operating state of the application environment.