A method for instantiating a cloud service, comprising: modeling by a topology designer, a blueprint as a topology, whereby - the blueprint is a collection of workflows or recipes that are used to implement lifecycle management actions, LCMAs, associated with a cloud service instantiated on a cloud; - modeling comprises viewing the blueprint as a graph with nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) and relationships between the nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7); - modeling further comprises deriving a number of containment relationships from the blueprint, the containment relationships defining a number of hierarchical relationships between a number of objects (1002-1, 1002-2, 1002-3, 1002-4, 1002-5, 1002-6, 1002-7, 1002-8, 1002-9, 1002-10, 1002-11) within the blueprint; associating by a resource offering manager, a number of policies and a number of LCMAs with a number of nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) within the topology; instantiating by a lifecycle management, LCM, engine, the cloud service based on the topology, the policies and the LCMAs; characterized in that: modeling further comprises deriving a number of temporal dependency relationships from the blueprint, the temporal dependency relationships defining a number of provisioning relationships between the number of objects (1002-1, 1002-2, 1002-3, 1002-4, 1002-5, 1002-6, 1002-7, 1002-8, 1002-9, 1002-10, 1002-11) within the blueprint, whereby a temporal order and dependency of provisioning of the objects to create the cloud service are defined by the position of the objects in the topology. modeling by a topology designer, a blueprint as a topology, whereby - the blueprint is a collection of workflows or recipes that are used to implement lifecycle management actions, LCMAs, associated with a cloud service instantiated on a cloud; - modeling comprises viewing the blueprint as a graph with nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) and relationships between the nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7); - modeling further comprises deriving a number of containment relationships from the blueprint, the containment relationships defining a number of hierarchical relationships between a number of objects (1002-1, 1002-2, 1002-3, 1002-4, 1002-5, 1002-6, 1002-7, 1002-8, 1002-9, 1002-10, 1002-11) within the blueprint; - the blueprint is a collection of workflows or recipes that are used to implement lifecycle management actions, LCMAs, associated with a cloud service instantiated on a cloud; - modeling comprises viewing the blueprint as a graph with nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) and relationships between the nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7); - modeling further comprises deriving a number of containment relationships from the blueprint, the containment relationships defining a number of hierarchical relationships between a number of objects (1002-1, 1002-2, 1002-3, 1002-4, 1002-5, 1002-6, 1002-7, 1002-8, 1002-9, 1002-10, 1002-11) within the blueprint; associating by a resource offering manager, a number of policies and a number of LCMAs with a number of nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) within the topology; instantiating by a lifecycle management, LCM, engine, the cloud service based on the topology, the policies and the LCMAs; characterized in that: modeling further comprises deriving a number of temporal dependency relationships from the blueprint, the temporal dependency relationships defining a number of provisioning relationships between the number of objects (1002-1, 1002-2, 1002-3, 1002-4, 1002-5, 1002-6, 1002-7, 1002-8, 1002-9, 1002-10, 1002-11) within the blueprint, whereby a temporal order and dependency of provisioning of the objects to create the cloud service are defined by the position of the objects in the topology.