1. A software compliance assessment apparatus for determining a level of compliance of a software application in execution in a virtualised computing environment, the apparatus comprising: an identifier adapted to identify resources instantiated for execution of the application; a retriever adapted to retrieve a compliance characteristic for the application, the compliance characteristic being retrieved based on the identified resources, and the compliance characteristic having associated a compliance criterion based on a formal parameter; a selector adapted to select a software component for providing an actual parameter corresponding to the formal parameter, the actual parameter being based on data concerning at least one of the resources; an evaluator adapted to evaluate the compliance criterion using the actual parameter; and a detector adapted to detect a change to one or more of the resources, wherein the identifier, selector and evaluator are operable in response to a determination by the detector that one or more resources is changed, wherein the selector selects the software component based on an identification of one or more data items that the software component is operable to provide.