1. A method of searching comprising; selecting an application category from a plurality of application categories, said plurality of application categories identifying different classes of applications for which storage provisioning is supported in a data storage environment comprising one or more data storage systems, said plurality of application categories including a database application, an electronic mail application, and a virtualized environment whereby applications executing in the virtualized environment have storage provisioned in the data storage environment; responsive to selecting the application category, selecting one or more application instances of the selected application category; receiving search criteria including the one or more selected application instances and one or more parameters; determining, in accordance with said search criteria whether to perform application-based searching or non-application-based searching; responsive to determining to perform application-based searching based on storage provisioned for the one or more selected applications identified in said search criteria rather than non-application-based searching, performing first processing in accordance with said search criteria, and otherwise performing second processing in accordance with said search criteria; and receiving search results produced as a result of one of said first processing and said second processing.