Cloud Service Brokerage: A systematic literature review using a software development lifecycle

Cloud Service Brokerage (CSB) is an emerging technology that has become popular with cloud computing. CSB is a middleman providing value added services, developed using standard software development lifecycle, from cloud providers to consumers. This paper provides a systematic literature review on this topic, covering 41 publications from 2009 to 2015. The paper aims to provide an overview of CSB research status, and give suggestions on how CSB research should proceed. A descriptive analysis reveals a lack of contributions from the Information Systems discipline. A software development lifecycle analysis uncovers a severe imbalance of research contributions across the four stages of software development: design, develop, deploy, and manage. The majority of research contributions are geared toward the design stage with a minimal contribution in the remaining stages. As such, we call for a balanced research endeavor across the cycle given the equal importance of each stage within the CSB paradigm

CLOUD COMPUTING ECOSYSTEM MODEL: REFINEMENT AND EVALUATION

A business ecosystem has evolved in the field of cloud computing whereby new types of market actors have emerged breaking up the traditional value chain of IT service provision. In order to create a pro-found understanding of this ecosystem, several scholars tried to capture it in a model. However, these models differ considerably from each other. The goal of this paper, therefore, is to develop a revised and comprehensive cloud computing ecosystem model according to the design science paradigm. For this purpose, the recently published Passau Cloud Computing Ecosystem Model (PaCE Model) is de-veloped significantly further by integrating the insights of an analysis of the existing cloud ecosystem models regarding ten criteria and by considering findings from the general cloud and business ecosys-tem literature. To ensure the integrity of the enhanced PaCE Model, the Internet is manually searched for companies occupying the roles of the model. As a result, the model comprises 26 roles and in-cludes the basic service flows. Since the missing market transparency is regarded as one of the main reasons for the low cloud adoption, the intended contribution is to foster a better understanding of the cloud ecosystem and to provide a conceptual framework for further research

Measuring the Business Value of Cloud Computing

The importance of demonstrating the value achieved from IT investments is long established in the Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) literature. However, emerging technologies such as the ever-changing complex area of cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for demonstrating how IT investments lead to business value. Recent reviews of extant literature highlights the need for multi-disciplinary research. This research should explore and further develops the conceptualization of value in cloud computing research. In addition, there is a need for research which investigates how IT value manifests itself across the chain of service provision and in inter-organizational scenarios. This open access book will review the state of the art from an IS, Computer Science and Accounting perspective, will introduce and discuss the main techniques for measuring business value for cloud computing in a variety of scenarios, and illustrate these with mini-case studies

Measuring the Business Value of Cloud Computing

The importance of demonstrating the value achieved from IT investments is long established in the Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) literature. However, emerging technologies such as the ever-changing complex area of cloud computing present new challenges and opportunities for demonstrating how IT investments lead to business value. Recent reviews of extant literature highlights the need for multi-disciplinary research. This research should explore and further develops the conceptualization of value in cloud computing research. In addition, there is a need for research which investigates how IT value manifests itself across the chain of service provision and in inter-organizational scenarios. This open access book will review the state of the art from an IS, Computer Science and Accounting perspective, will introduce and discuss the main techniques for measuring business value for cloud computing in a variety of scenarios, and illustrate these with mini-case studies

Mapping Cross-Cloud Systems: Challenges and Opportunities

Abstract Recent years have seen significant growth in the cloud computing market, both in terms of provider competition (including private offerings) and customer adoption. However, the cloud computing world still lacks adopted standard programming interfaces, which has a knock-on effect on the costs associated with interoperability and severely limits the flexibility and portability of applications and virtual infrastructures. This has brought about an increasing number of cross-cloud architectures, i.e. systems that span across cloud provisioning boundaries. This paper condenses discussions from the CrossCloud event series to outline the types of cross-cloud systems and their associated design decisions, and laments challenges and opportunities they create

Data Spaces

This open access book aims to educate data space designers to understand what is required to create a successful data space. It explores cutting-edge theory, technologies, methodologies, and best practices for data spaces for both industrial and personal data and provides the reader with a basis for understanding the design, deployment, and future directions of data spaces. The book captures the early lessons and experience in creating data spaces. It arranges these contributions into three parts covering design, deployment, and future directions respectively. The first part explores the design space of data spaces. The single chapters detail the organisational design for data spaces, data platforms, data governance federated learning, personal data sharing, data marketplaces, and hybrid artificial intelligence for data spaces. The second part describes the use of data spaces within real-world deployments. Its chapters are co-authored with industry experts and include case studies of data spaces in sectors including industry 4.0, food safety, FinTech, health care, and energy. The third and final part details future directions for data spaces, including challenges and opportunities for common European data spaces and privacy-preserving techniques for trustworthy data sharing. The book is of interest to two primary audiences: first, researchers interested in data management and data sharing, and second, practitioners and industry experts engaged in data-driven systems where the sharing and exchange of data within an ecosystem are critical

Data Spaces

This open access book aims to educate data space designers to understand what is required to create a successful data space. It explores cutting-edge theory, technologies, methodologies, and best practices for data spaces for both industrial and personal data and provides the reader with a basis for understanding the design, deployment, and future directions of data spaces. The book captures the early lessons and experience in creating data spaces. It arranges these contributions into three parts covering design, deployment, and future directions respectively. The first part explores the design space of data spaces. The single chapters detail the organisational design for data spaces, data platforms, data governance federated learning, personal data sharing, data marketplaces, and hybrid artificial intelligence for data spaces. The second part describes the use of data spaces within real-world deployments. Its chapters are co-authored with industry experts and include case studies of data spaces in sectors including industry 4.0, food safety, FinTech, health care, and energy. The third and final part details future directions for data spaces, including challenges and opportunities for common European data spaces and privacy-preserving techniques for trustworthy data sharing. The book is of interest to two primary audiences: first, researchers interested in data management and data sharing, and second, practitioners and industry experts engaged in data-driven systems where the sharing and exchange of data within an ecosystem are critical

Policy-Driven Governance in Cloud Service Ecosystems

Cloud application development platforms facilitate new models of software co-development and forge environments best characterised as cloud service ecosystems. The value of those ecosystems increases exponentially with the addition of more users and third-party services. Growth however breeds complexity and puts reliability at risk, requiring all stakeholders to exercise control over changes in the ecosystem that may affect them. This is a challenge of governance. From the viewpoint of the ecosystem coordinator, governance is about preventing negative ripple effects from new software added to the platform. From the viewpoint of third-party developers and end-users, governance is about ensuring that the cloud services they consume or deliver comply with requirements on a continuous basis. To facilitate different forms of governance in a cloud service ecosystem we need governance support systems that achieve separation of concerns between the roles of policy provider, governed resource provider and policy evaluator. This calls for better modularisation of the governance support system architecture, decoupling governance policies from policy evaluation engines and governed resources. It also calls for an improved approach to policy engineering with increased automation and efficient exchange of governance policies and related data between ecosystem partners. The thesis supported by this research is that governance support systems that satisfy such requirements are both feasible and useful to develop through a framework that integrates Semantic Web technologies and Linked Data principles. The PROBE framework presented in this dissertation comprises four components: (1) a governance ontology serving as shared ecosystem vocabulary for policies and resources; (2) a method for the definition of governance policies; (3) a method for sharing descriptions of governed resources between ecosystem partners; (4) a method for evaluating governance policies against descriptions of governed ecosystem resources. The feasibility and usefulness of PROBE are demonstrated with the help of an industrial case study on cloud service ecosystem governance

Smart Technology Adoption’s Impact on the Value of Logistics Service Providers’ Firms

Although it took a pandemic to raise awareness about supply chain issues in the minds of the public at large, industry players have long understood supply chain complexities—particularly in the face of continually evolving technologies and ever-more interconnected global enterprises. With Logistics 4.0 and the rapid developments in smart technologies, these complexities make the ongoing need for technology adoption even more complicated for logistics providers. While the literature regularly reports on the adoption of specific technologies, there is little research on the adoption process and even less that might guide providers in prioritizing their technology targets. This research examined the literature for drivers and consequences of technology adoption among providers, then tested those concepts through in-depth interviews with 40 senior-level executives at global logistics provider firms. Among the study’s findings are that the drivers and consequences of smart technology adoption are similar among logistics providers. However, firm size, business tenure, and client relationships moderate the adoption of these innovations. The study identifies incumbent people, processes, and systems as “excess baggage” that slows adoption because of adjustments needed to accommodate new technologies and creates bottlenecks for these firms. However, when combined with new competencies, streamlined processes, and proper change management, this baggage may improve firm performance because of the legacy processes integrated with customers’ supply chains. The study also developed a framework to inform practitioners’ adoption efforts. The framework addresses the research questions. It also recommends that to realize quicker revenue gains when adopting smart technology. Providers focus on two key drivers: customer relationships and market demands. This research also suggests that providers adopting smart technology leverage their incumbent human resources, processes, and technologies to deliver customer value and improve firm performance

The Digital Transformation of Automotive Businesses: THREE ARTEFACTS TO SUPPORT DIGITAL SERVICE PROVISION AND INNOVATION

Digitalisation and increasing competitive pressure drive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to switch their focus towards the provision of digital services and open-up towards increased collaboration and customer integration. This shift implies a significant transformational change from product to product-service providers, where OEMs realign themselves within strategic, business and procedural dimensions. Thus, OEMs must manage digital transformation (DT) processes in order to stay competitive and remain adaptable to changing customer demands. However, OEMs aspiring to become participants or leaders in their domain, struggle to initiate activities as there is a lack of applicable instruments that can guide and support them during this process. Compared to the practical importance of DT, empirical studies are not comprehensive. This study proposes three artefacts, validated within case companies that intend to support automotive OEMs in digital service provisioning. Artefact one, a layered conceptual model for a digital automotive ecosystem, was developed by means of 26 expert interviews. It can serve as a useful instrument for decision makers to strategically plan and outline digital ecosystems. Artefact two is a conceptual reference framework for automotive service systems. The artefact was developed based on an extensive literature review, and the mapping of the business model canvas to the service system domain. The artefact intends to assist OEMs in the efficient conception of digital services under consideration of relevant stakeholders and the necessary infrastructures. Finally, artefact three proposes a methodology by which to transform software readiness assessment processes to fit into the agile software development approach with consideration of the existing operational infrastructure. Overall, the findings contribute to the empirical body of knowledge about the digital transformation of manufacturing industries. The results suggest value creation for digital automotive services occurs in networks among interdependent stakeholders in which customers play an integral role during the services’ life-cycle. The findings further indicate the artefacts as being useful instruments, however, success is dependent on the integration and collaboration of all contributing departments.:Table of Contents Bibliographic Description II Acknowledgment III Table of Contents IV List of Figures VI List of Tables VII List of Abbreviations VIII 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Motivation and Problem Statement 1 1.2 Objective and Research Questions 6 1.3 Research Methodology 7 1.4 Contributions 10 1.5 Outline 12 2 Background 13 2.1 From Interdependent Value Creation to Digital Ecosystems 13 2.1.1 Digitalisation Drives Collaboration 13 2.1.2 Pursuing an Ecosystem Strategy 13 2.1.3 Research Gaps and Strategy Formulation Obstacles 20 2.2 From Products to Product-Service Solutions 22 2.2.1 Digital Service Fulfilment Requires Co-Creational Networks 22 2.2.2 Enhancing Business Models with Digital Services 28 2.2.3 Research Gaps and Service Conception Obstacles 30 2.3 From Linear Development to Continuous Innovation 32 2.3.1 Digital Innovation Demands Digital Transformation 32 2.3.2 Assessing Digital Products 36 2.3.3 Research Gaps and Implementation Obstacles 38 3 Artefact 1: Digital Automotive Ecosystems 41 3.1 Meta Data 41 3.2 Summary 42 3.3 Designing a Layered Conceptual Model of a Digital Ecosystem 45 4 Artefact 2: Conceptual Reference Framework 79 4.1 Meta Data 79 4.2 Summary 80 4.3 On the Move Towards Customer-Centric Automotive Business Models 83 5 Artefact 3: Agile Software Readiness Assessment Procedures 121 5.1 Meta Data 121 5.2 Meta Data 122 5.3 Summary 123 5.4 Adding Agility to Software Readiness Assessment Procedures 126 5.5 Continuous Software Readiness Assessments for Agile Development 147 6 Conclusion and Future Work 158 6.1 Contributions 158 6.1.1 Strategic Dimension: Artefact 1 158 6.1.2 Business Dimension: Artefact 2 159 6.1.3 Process Dimension: Artefact 3 161 6.1.4 Synthesis of Contributions 163 6.2 Implications 167 6.2.1 Scientific Implications 167 6.2.2 Managerial Implications 168 6.2.3 Intelligent Parking Service Example (ParkSpotHelp) 171 6.3 Concluding Remarks 174 6.3.1 Threats to Validity 174 6.3.2 Outlook and Future Research Recommendations 174 Appendix VII Bibliography XX Wissenschaftlicher Werdegang XXXVII Selbständigkeitserklärung XXXVII