A method, system, and computer usable program product for non-intrusive event-driven prediction of a metric in a data processing environment are provided in the illustrative embodiments. At least one set of events is observed in the data processing environment, the set of events being generated by several processes executing in the data processing environment. A subset of the set of events are tracked for an observation period, the tracking resulting in bookkeeping information about the subset of events. A pattern of events is detected in the bookkeeping information. The pattern is formed as a tuple representing a process in the several processes, the metric corresponding to the process. A prediction model is selected for the tuple. The prediction model is supplied with the tuple and executed to generate a predicted value of the metric.