1. A software compliance assessment apparatus for determining a level of compliance of a software application in execution in a virtualized computing environment, the apparatus comprising: at least one processor and a memory, the memory comprising instructions executable by the at least one processor to control the apparatus to at least: identify resources instantiated for execution of the application; 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; 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; evaluate the compliance criterion using the actual parameter; and detect a change to one or more of the resources, wherein the identification, selection, and evaluation are operable in response to a determination that one or more resources is changed, wherein the selection is operable to select the software component based on an identification of one or more data items that the software component is operable to provide.