A system and method for managing data resources includes a policy definition layer, a policy deployment layer and a policy execution layer. The policy definition layer provides for creating, editing and visualizing policies through a user interface using intuitive simple language constructs. The policy deployment layer converts the created policies into a relational format that can be directly stored in a policy database. The policy execution layer executes the deployed policies on occurrence of an event. A resource abstraction and notification layer provides the interfacing of the resources with the policy definition layer, policy deployment layer and the policy execution layer.