In accordance with certain aspects of the model-based policy application, each of a plurality of policies is associated with appropriate parts of a model of a heterogeneous system. A deployment agent is invoked to apply each of the plurality of policies to components associated with the parts of the model. An identification of a change to one of the plurality of policies is received, and the deployment agent is also invoked to apply the changed policy to selected ones of the components associated with the parts of the model.