Cloud resource provisioning is a challenging job that may be compromised due to unavailability of the expected resources. Quality of Service (QoS) requirements of workloads derives the provisioning of appropriate resources to cloud workloads. Discovery of best workload–resource pair based on application requirements of cloud users is an optimization problem. Acceptable QoS cannot be provided to the cloud users until provisioning of resources is offered as a crucial ability. QoS parameters-based resource provisioning technique is therefore required for efficient provisioning of resources. This research depicts a broad methodical literature analysis of cloud resource provisioning in general and cloud resource identification in specific. The existing research is categorized generally into various groups in the area of cloud resource provisioning. In this paper, a methodical analysis of resource provisioning in cloud computing is presented, in which resource management, resource provisioning, resource provisioning evolution, different types of resource provisioning mechanisms and their comparisons, benefits and open issues are described. This research work also highlights the previous research, current status and future directions of resource provisioning and management in cloud computing.