Resource provisioning in distributed computing environments

A computer system to provide a resource to a virtualized

• software installation in a distributed computing environment, the system comprising:
• a receiver including logic adapted to receive a functional requirement for the software installation;
• a resource assessor including logic adapted to determine an extent of a resource required to implement the functional requirement;
• a resource provider identifier including logic adapted to identify one or more resource providers in the distributed computing environment having availability of the required resource to the determined extent;
• and
• an interface via which an indication of the identified resource providers is communicated to the software installation in order that the resource can be provided to the software installation to the determined extent to provide the functional requirement;
• and
• wherein the functional requirement has one or more characteristics which are associated with the functional requirement, and determining an extent of a resource required includes:
• accessing a directory of functional requirement characteristics, the directory defining, for each of the one or more characteristics, an extent of the resource required to provide a functional requirement having the characteristic.