We present an approach to the analysis and optimization of heterogeneous distributed embedded systems for hard real-time applications. The systems are heterogeneous not only in terms of hardware components, but also in terms of communication protocols and scheduling policies. When several scheduling policies share a resource, they are organized in a hierarchy. In this paper; we address design problems that are characteristic to such hierarchically scheduled systems: assignment of scheduling policies to tasks, mapping of tasks to hardware components, and the scheduling of the activities. We present algorithms for solving these problems. Our heuristics are able to find schedulable implementations under limited resources, achieving an efficient utilization of the system.