Patent attributes
Resource provider specifications, characterizing computing resources of computing resource providers, are received. The reachability of each IP address included in the received specification is determined. An agent is deployed that is operable to determine the value of each of a set of metrics in the environment of the host at which the agent is deployed. The agent determines the value of each metric of the set of metrics in the environment of the relevant host, and communicates the determined values to one or more computing devices that validate whether the resources characterized by the communicated values are sufficient to provide the performance characterized by the received specification and that each ISP router complies with a predetermined policy. For each computing resource provider validated and determined to comprise an ISP router compliant with policy, the specified computing resources are added to a pool of resources for cloud computing.