Supporting Application Requirements in Cloud-based IoT Information Processing

IoT infrastructures can be seen as an interconnected network of sources of data, whose analysis and processing can be beneficial for our society. Since IoT devices are limited in storage and computation capabilities, relying on external cloud providers has recently been identified as a promising solution for storing and managing IoT data. Due to the heterogeneity of IoT data and applicative scenarios, the cloud service delivery should be driven by the requirements of the specific IoT applications. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for supporting application requirements (typically related to security, due to the inevitable concerns arising whenever data are stored and managed at external third parties) in cloud-based IoT data processing. Our solution allows a subject with an authority over an IoT infrastructure to formulate conditions that the provider must satisfy in service provisioning, and computes a SLA based on these conditions while accounting for possible dependencies among them. We also illustrate a CSP-based formulation of the problem of computing a SLA, which can be solved adopting off-the-shelves CSP solvers

Supporting Users in Cloud Plan Selection

Cloud computing is a key technology for outsourcing data and applications to external providers. The current cloud market offers a multitude of solutions (plans) differing from one another in terms of their characteristics. In this context, the selection of the right plan for outsourcing is of paramount importance for users wishing to move their data/applications to the cloud. The scientific community has then developed different models and tools for capturing users\u2019 requirements and evaluating candidate plans to determine the extent to which each of them satisfies such requirements. In this chapter, we illustrate some of the existing solutions proposed for cloud plan selection and for supporting users in the specification of their (crisp and/or fuzzy) needs

Data Security and Privacy in the Cloud

Relying on the cloud for storing data and performing computations has become a popular solution in today\u2019s society, which demands large data collections and/or analysis over them to be readily available, for example, to make knowledge-based decisions. While bringing undeniable benefits to both data owners and end users accessing the outsourced data, moving to the cloud raises a number of issues, ranging from choosing the most suitable cloud provider for outsourcing to effectively protecting data and computation results. In this paper, we discuss the main issues related to data protection arising when data and/or computations over them are moved to the cloud. We also illustrate possible solutions and approaches for addressing such issues

A Fuzzy-Based Brokering Service for Cloud Plan Selection

The current cloud market features a multitude of cloud services that differ from one another in terms of functionality or of security/performance guarantees. Users wishing to use a cloud service for storing, processing, or sharing their data must be able to select the service that best matches their desiderata. In this paper, we propose a novel, user centric, brokering service for supporting users in the specification of requirements and enabling their evaluation against available cloud plans, assessing how much the different plans can satisfy the user\u2019s desiderata. Our brokering service allows users to specify their desiderata in an easy and intuitive way by using natural language expressions and high-level concepts. Fuzzy logic and fuzzy inference systems are adopted to quantitatively assess the compliance of cloud services with the users\u2019 desiderata, and hence to help users in the cloud service selection process

Supporting User Requirements and Preferences in Cloud Plan Selection

With the cloud emerging as a successful paradigm for conveniently storing, accessing, processing, and sharing information, the cloud market has seen an incredible growth. An ever-increasing number of providers offer today several cloud plans, with different guarantees in terms of service properties such as performance, cost, or security. While such a variety naturally corresponds to a diversified user demand, it is far from trivial for users to identify the cloud providers and plans that better suit their specific needs. In this paper, we address the problem of supporting users in cloud plan selection. We characterize different kinds of requirements that may need to be supported in cloud plan selection and introduce a very simple and intuitive, yet expressive, language that captures different requirements as well as preferences users may wish to express. The corresponding formal modeling permits to reason on requirements satisfaction to identify plans that meet the constraints imposed by requirements, and to produce a preference-based ranking among such plans

A manifesto for future generation cloud computing: research directions for the next decade

The Cloud computing paradigm has revolutionised the computer science horizon during the past decade and has enabled the emergence of computing as the fifth utility. It has captured significant attention of academia, industries, and government bodies. Now, it has emerged as the backbone of modern economy by offering subscription-based services anytime, anywhere following a pay-as-you-go model. This has instigated (1) shorter establishment times for start-ups, (2) creation of scalable global enterprise applications, (3) better cost-to-value associativity for scientific and high performance computing applications, and (4) different invocation/execution models for pervasive and ubiquitous applications. The recent technological developments and paradigms such as serverless computing, software-defined networking, Internet of Things, and processing at network edge are creating new opportunities for Cloud computing. However, they are also posing several new challenges and creating the need for new approaches and research strategies, as well as the re-evaluation of the models that were developed to address issues such as scalability, elasticity, reliability, security, sustainability, and application models. The proposed manifesto addresses them by identifying the major open challenges in Cloud computing, emerging trends, and impact areas. It then offers research directions for the next decade, thus helping in the realisation of Future Generation Cloud Computing