Security in a computing environment by automatically defining the scope and services of components within the computing environment

A feature selection methodology is disclosed. In a computer-implemented method, components of a computing environment are automatically monitored, and have a feature selection analysis performed thereon. Provided the feature selection analysis determines that features of the components are well defined, a classification of the features is performed. Provided the feature selection analysis determines that features of the components are not well defined, a similarity analysis of the features is performed. Results of the feature selection methodology are generated.