9. A computer-implemented, comprising: receiving a configuration specification for configuring a cloud-based deployment, the configuration specification being written in a specification language and requiring instantiation of respective class definitions of one or more classes, each class modeling a respective data or functional component of the cloud-based deployment using a group of configurable class parameters, and the respective class definition of each class representing a requested state of the data or functional component modeled by the class; deriving a plurality of application programming interface (API) calls for configuring the cloud-based deployment based on the class definitions of the one or more classes; causing the plurality of API calls to be executed to configure the cloud-based deployment; storing respective class definitions of a plurality of core classes of the specification language, each core class corresponding to a modular component of a cloud-based environment, each core class being extendable with additional class parameters to configure the respective modular component; storing a mapping between each of the core classes and a respective group of API calls, the respective group of API calls for configuring the modular component associated with the core class according to the class parameters of the core class; and storing a plurality of protocols for modifying the respective groups of API calls associated with each core class to obtain a new group of API calls for a new class definition derived from the core class.
9. A computer-implemented, comprising: receiving a configuration specification for configuring a cloud-based deployment, the configuration specification being written in a specification language and requiring instantiation of respective class definitions of one or more classes, each class modeling a respective data or functional component of the cloud-based deployment using a group of configurable class parameters, and the respective class definition of each class representing a requested state of the data or functional component modeled by the class; deriving a plurality of application programming interface (API) calls for configuring the cloud-based deployment based on the class definitions of the one or more classes; causing the plurality of API calls to be executed to configure the cloud-based deployment; storing respective class definitions of a plurality of core classes of the specification language, each core class corresponding to a modular component of a cloud-based environment, each core class being extendable with additional class parameters to configure the respective modular component; storing a mapping between each of the core classes and a respective group of API calls, the respective group of API calls for configuring the modular component associated with the core class according to the class parameters of the core class; and storing a plurality of protocols for modifying the respective groups of API calls associated with each core class to obtain a new group of API calls for a new class definition derived from the core class. 13. The computer-implemented method of claim 9 , wherein: the data or functional component modeled by each class is one of a virtual device supporting a cloud-based environment, a service utilized in the cloud-based environment, a software role performed by an installed application in the cloud-based environment, a data package holding data to be used during deployment or operation of the cloud-based environment, or a combination of one or more thereof.