A data management system has at least one class distinction cue associated with a class of data entities. The class distinction cue comprises data management guidance information and priority information related to the associated class of data entities. For a data entity, at run-time, a data management allocation run-time system references the class distinction cue or cues prior to conducting data management allocation or access, and, based on the priority information as compared to other priority information related to the data storage resources, selectively allocates the data storage resources and provides the operations of the storage system in the data management allocation system for the data entity.