An Approach to Enable Cloud-Computing by the Abstraction of Event-Processing Classes

Following our introduction of the concept ofAbstraction Classes, we present herein their realisation withina cloud environment. This is achieved using a combinationof integrated service-location models, including Knowledge-Based Systems, and distributed metadata using XML. This iscomplemented by service control software invoked at the level ofAbstraction Classes

Challenges for the comprehensive management of cloud services in a PaaS framework

The 4CaaSt project aims at developing a PaaS framework that enables flexible definition, marketing, deployment and management of Cloud-based services and applications. The major innovations proposed by 4CaaSt are the blueprint and its lifecycle management, a one stop shop for Cloud services and a PaaS level resource management featuring elasticity. 4CaaSt also provides a portfolio of ready to use Cloud native services and Cloud-aware immigrant technologies

4CaaSt: Comprehensive management of Cloud services through a PaaS

The 4CaaSt project aims at developing a PaaS framework that enables flexible definition, marketing, deployment and management of Cloud-based services and applications. The major innovations proposed by 4CaaSt are the blueprint and its management and lifecycle, a one stop shop for Cloud services and the management of resources in the PaaS level (including elasticity). 4CaaSt also provides a portfolio of ready to use Cloud native services and Cloud- aware immigrant technologies

Towards a Standards-Based Cloud Service Manager

Migrating services to the cloud brings all the benefits of elasticity, scalability and cost-cutting. However, migrating services among different cloud infrastructures or outside of the cloud is not an obvious task. In addition, distributing services among multiple cloud providers, or on a hybrid installation requires a custom implementation effort that must be repeated at each infrastructure change. This situation raises the lock-in problem and discourages cloud adoption. Cloud computing open standards were designed to face this situation and to bring interoperability and portability to cloud environments. However, they target isolated resources, and do not take into account the notion of complete services. In this paper, we introduce an extension to OCCI, a cloud computing open standard, in order to support complete service definition and management automation. We support this proposal with an open-source framework for service management through compliant cloud infrastructures.Peer reviewe

Survey of Service Description Languages and Their Issues in Cloud Computing

Along with the growing popularity of cloud computing technology, the amount of available cloud services and their usage frequency are increasing. In order to provide a mechanism for the efficient enforcement of service-relevant operations in cloud environment, such as service discovery, service provision, and service management, a completed and precise service specification model is highly required. In this paper, we conducted a survey on existing service description languages applied in three different domains - general services, Web/SOA services, and cloud services. We discussed and compared the past literature from seven major aspects, which are: (1) domain, (2) coverage, (3) purpose, (4) representation, (5) semantic expressivity, (6) intended users, and (7) features. Additionally, two core dimensions semantic expressivity and coverage are employed to categorize and analyse the key service description languages by using Magic Quadrant methodology. These two dimensions are regarded as the most essential factors for the evaluation of a service description model. Based on this analysis, we concluded that Unified Service Description Language (USDL) is the language with the widest coverage from business, technical and operational aspects, while OWL-S is the one that has the highest semantic expressivity. At last, critical research issues on cloud service description languages are identified and analysed. The solution of these issues requires more research efforts on the standardization of cloud service specification, which will eventually enhance the development of cloud industry

Cloud service brokerage: a conceptual ontology-based service description framework

Cloud service brokerage has been identified as a key concern for future Cloud technology research and development. Integration, customization and aggregation are core functions of a Cloud service broker. The need to cater to horizontal and vertical integration in service description languages, horizontally between different providers and vertically across the different Cloud layers, has been well recognized. In this chapter, we propose a conceptual framework for a Cloud service broker in two parts: first, a reference architecture for Cloud service brokers; and second, a rich ontology-based template manipulation framework and operator calculus that describes the mediated and integrated Cloud services, facilitates manipulating their descriptions, and allows both horizontal and vertical dimensions to be covered. Structural aspects of that template will be identified, formalized in an ontology and aligned with the Cloud development and deployment process

Maturity of Cloud Application Interoperability Frameworks for Small to Medium Enterprises

Cloud computing has many benefits and organisations have bought into the cost effective and elastic solutions provided by major players in the market. However, cloud computing and Cloud Service Providers (CSP) are still evolving, hence there are differences in how customers connect with each provider to the orchestrate application lifecycle management. A lack of standards can create vendor lock-in. This work investigates current research and possible solutions to the vendor lock-in problem through the use of Cloud Interoperability or multi-cloud frameworks. Software developers and organisations can use these frameworks which abstract the differences between CSPs and mitigate vendor lock-in. A reference web application, with compute intensive operations, was developed and then adapted to each framework to evaluate the usability and stability of each multi-cloud framework, scaling up and down the underlying virtual infrastructure to meet varied demand. Cost conscious Small to Medium Enterprises can use these frameworks to stay competitive by having the ability to switch CSPs quickly for more favourable costs or better performance. Overall this will lead to increased competition and more innovation between CSPs benefiting the customer once more