A system and method for policy based provisioning in a computing environment. In an example embodiment, the system is adapted to selectively allocate usage rights and access privileges to computing resources of a computing environment. The system includes a provisioning policy; a centralized resource provisioning module; one or more applications in communication with the centralized resource provisioning module; and software running on the resource provisioning module, wherein the software is adapted to initiate selective provisioning of computing resources offered by the one or more applications to a user in accordance with the provisioning policy.