An invention is provided for customizing attributes of a distributed
processing system. An embodiment includes a lookup service capable of
advertising attributes of a processing resource, and a processing resource
executing an agent process, which is in communication with the lookup
service. The processing resource is capable of loading a set of core
attributes defining characteristics of the processing resource. Further
included are a plurality of dynamic attribute classes and a dynamic
attribute list file that provides information concerning the dynamic
attribute classes. In use, the agent process reads the dynamic attribute
list to obtain the information concerning the dynamic attribute classes,
and then loads the plurality of dynamic attribute classes utilizing the
information in the dynamic attribute list concerning the dynamic attribute
classes.
