A method in distributed network computing, the method comprising, at a computing resource selection system: a reception unit receiving, from an input source, task details of a task to be performed by a computing resource, wherein the task includes running an application with a given set of inputs as an application instance, and the task details include information identifying the application and application source code, and a complete set of inputs specific to the application instance; an identification unit identifying, from among the complete set of inputs, a set of inputs which affect an execution time of the application instance; a benchmarking input set generation unit generating a benchmarking set of inputs by adjusting values of the identified set of inputs, wherein the adjusting includes one or more of the following: if the identified set of inputs include inputs which control how many iterations of a section of code is executed, reducing numbers of iterations of sections of code; and if a temporal duration of a physical process simulation is specified in the set of inputs, reducing the specified temporal duration; a transmission unit transmitting the benchmarking set of inputs and the application to a plurality of candidate computing resources for running the application with the benchmarking set of inputs as a benchmarking process; the reception unit receiving, from the or each of the one or more candidate computing resources, performance statistics of the benchmarking process; a selection unit selecting an optimum computing resource to run the application instance using the performance statistics from the plurality of candidate computing resources, based on a selection policy, the selection policy being based on one or more of: execution time, time to solution, price to performance ratio, and CO 2 emission levels. a reception unit receiving, from an input source, task details of a task to be performed by a computing resource, wherein the task includes running an application with a given set of inputs as an application instance, and the task details include information identifying the application and application source code, and a complete set of inputs specific to the application instance; an identification unit identifying, from among the complete set of inputs, a set of inputs which affect an execution time of the application instance; an identification unit identifying, from among the complete set of inputs, a set of inputs which affect an execution time of the application instance; a benchmarking input set generation unit generating a benchmarking set of inputs by adjusting values of the identified set of inputs, wherein the adjusting includes one or more of the following: if the identified set of inputs include inputs which control how many iterations of a section of code is executed, reducing numbers of iterations of sections of code; and if a temporal duration of a physical process simulation is specified in the set of inputs, reducing the specified temporal duration; a transmission unit transmitting the benchmarking set of inputs and the application to a plurality of candidate computing resources for running the application with the benchmarking set of inputs as a benchmarking process; the reception unit receiving, from the or each of the one or more candidate computing resources, performance statistics of the benchmarking process; a selection unit selecting an optimum computing resource to run the application instance using the performance statistics from the plurality of candidate computing resources, based on a selection policy, the selection policy being based on one or more of: execution time, time to solution, price to performance ratio, and CO 2 emission levels. if the identified set of inputs include inputs which control how many iterations of a section of code is executed, reducing numbers of iterations of sections of code; and if a temporal duration of a physical process simulation is specified in the set of inputs, reducing the specified temporal duration; a transmission unit transmitting the benchmarking set of inputs and the application to a plurality of candidate computing resources for running the application with the benchmarking set of inputs as a benchmarking process; the reception unit receiving, from the or each of the one or more candidate computing resources, performance statistics of the benchmarking process; a selection unit selecting an optimum computing resource to run the application instance using the performance statistics from the plurality of candidate computing resources, based on a selection policy, the selection policy being based on one or more of: execution time, time to solution, price to performance ratio, and CO 2 emission levels.