Controlled resource provisioning in distributed computing environments

A computer system to provide allocation of one or more computing resources for use by a consumer computing component, each resource having a resource type and being provided by one or more resource providers, and the consumer having associated a quantity of tradeable value constraining an extent of resource consumption, the system comprising:

• a processor and a data store, wherein the processor is adapted to:
• define one or more consumption rules for each of the resource providers, each consumption rule being associated with the consumer and defining:
• a type of resource, and
• one or more tradeable values corresponding to costs for consumption of resource, each tradeable value being associated with a particular configuration of the resource,
• wherein the consumption rules are recorded in a blockchain data structure;
• and
• define an optimization rule associated with the consumer and including:
• a reference to each of the consumption rules associated with the consumer,
• a definition of one or more constraints on characteristics of resources, and
• a consumption optimization function, wherein the optimization rule is recorded in the blockchain,
• wherein, a transaction is submitted to the blockchain to trigger consumption of one or more required types of resource and responsive to the transaction the optimization rule determines one or more resource providers for providing resources of the required resource types and, for each determined provider, the optimization function determines, based on the consumption rules, a particular configuration and an extent of consumption of each type of resource so as to control expenditure of the consumer's tradeable value.