1. A method in a virtualization platform for deploying one or more virtual machines on the virtualization platform comprising operating a computer system of the virtualization platform to perform steps of: receiving configuration information which specifies a configuration of one or more virtual machines; defining one or more virtual machines that can run on the virtualization platform using the configuration information; for a first virtual machine specified by the configuration information, identifying a service to be consumed by the first virtual machine; identifying a provider which can provide the service; receiving runtime information from the provider of the service relating to provisioning of the service to the first virtual machine during runtime; and storing the runtime information in a data store accessible by the virtualization platform, wherein the runtime information is provided to the first virtual machine when the virtualization platform performs a power on sequence to start the first virtual machine.