Cloud computing and prospective business and economic impacts in developing country: A case study of Thailand

The cloud computing model is a modern concept of computation that provides a number of benefits for its adopters. This online computing model has been widely used in the western world and accepted to have some business and economic impacts. This paper provides some basic knowledge about cloud computing along with its economic benefits. The author proposes that there is an endogenous relationship between the cloud computing and each of the business and economic variables, namely output, employment, and labour productivity. In order to forecast the impacts of the cloud computing adoption, the Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is constructed. Thailand is selected as ground for investigation. Apart from the bi-directional causality, the results also show prospective positive impacts of the cloud computing adoption on the growth of output, employment, and labour productivity. Despite the macroeconomic benefits, some policy implications include the encouragement of the cloud computing adoption in universities and banks in order to realise the benefit of scalability and efficient usage of computing resources. --Cloud computing,Macroeconomic indicators,Forecast,Thailand

Transfer Cost of Virtual Machine Live Migration in Cloud Systems

Virtualised frameworks typically form the foundations of Cloud systems, where Virtual Machine (VM) instances provide execution environments for a diverse range of applications and services. Modern VMs support Live Migration (LM) – a feature wherein a VM instance is transferred to an alternative node without stopping its execution. The focus of this research is to analyse and evaluate the LM transfer cost which we define as the total size of data to be transferred to another node for a particular migrated VM instance. Several different virtualisation approaches are categorised with a shortlist of candidate VMs for evaluation. The selection of VirtualBox as the best representative VM for our experiments and analysis is then discussed and justified. The paper highlights the major areas of the LM transfer process – CPU registers, memory, permanent storage, and network switching – and analyses their impact on the volume of information to be migrated which includes the VM instance with the required libraries, the application code and any data associated with it. Then, using several representative applications, we report experimental results for the transfer cost of LM for respective VirtualBox instances. We also introduce a novel Live Migration Data Transfer (LMDT) formula, which has been experimentally validated and confirms the exponential nature of the LMDT process. Our estimation model supports efficient design and development decisions in the process of analysing and building Cloud systems. The presented methodology is also applicable to the closely-related area of virtual containers which is part of our current and future work

Migrating Legacy Software Applications to Cloud Computing Environments : A Software Architect's Approach

Cloud computing has garnered a great deal of interest in the past few years. The availability of on-demand computational power is presumed to provide substantial IT infrastructure cost-savings, partially through the reduction of maintenance and administration costs. However, in order to take advantage of these savings, it is often required that legacy applications be rewritten at least partially, if not in entirety, to operate in these environments. As a part of re-architecting these legacy assets for cloud computing environments, the software architect may also consider application modifications providing other cost benefits which may have been cost prohibitive to implement in a more traditional computing environment. Although not a new technology, the combination of parallel computing and cloud environments can offer a number of benefits to many application categories if the cost of making the necessary changes to the application and setting up and maintaining the environment can be justified.  This thesis explores the use of cloud computing to provide a flexible deployment environment in which to run a migrated legacy application using one of the popular parallel computing frameworks. The ability to easily and rapidly configure and deploy hardware and software to create a cloud capable of executing applications with parallelism combines the benefits of these technologies in a powerful manner. In order to make an informed decision about the potential benefits of such an environment, the owner of those assets needs to be able to balance any savings against any costs incurred to enable existing corporate business applications to run in such an environment.  An approach to performing such an analysis is presented in this thesis. To provide some quantitative means of measuring benefits, benchmark results of the computational resources required by the application in the different environments are provided. Additionally, offsetting costs such as software re-architecting and refactoring are considered.  M.S

A framework for QoS driven user-side cloud service management

This thesis presents a comprehensive framework that assists the cloud service user in making cloud service management decisions, such as service selection and migration. The proposed framework utilizes the QoS history of the available services for QoS forecasting and multi-criteria decision making. It then integrates all the inherent necessary processes, such as QoS monitoring, forecasting, service comparison and ranking to recommend the best and optimal decision to the user

Factores determinantes para la adopción de Cloud Computing de Pymes de la Ciudad de Bogotá

La migración de recursos de TI al modelo de Cloud Computing es una decisión estratégica de una empresa que puede entregarle beneficios como reducción de costos, agilidad y flexibilidad para desplegar servicios, pero que a la vez puede llegar a ser difícil de implementar. Requiere la consideración y evaluación de una amplia gama de aspectos técnicos, organizacionales y del entorno. El procedimiento se dificulta sobre todo para Pymes que cuentan con sistemas legados y que no gozan de una apropiación de servicios TIC vertiginosa. Esta tesis tiene como objetivo explorar los factores que facilitan o inhiben la decisión de migrar a la nube para este tipo de empresas y su nivel de efecto. Se construyó un modelo de investigación basado en la teoría DOI y el marco TOE. Finalmente se entregan recomendaciones para que las empresas evalúen en qué medida les conviene mover sus recursos a la nube y los proveedores ajusten sus soluciones a las necesidades de estas.Abstract. The migration of IT resources to the Cloud Computing model is a strategic decision of a company that can deliver benefits such as cost reduction, agility and flexibility to deploy services, but at the same time can be difficult to implement. It requires the consideration and evaluation of a wide range of technical, organizational and environmental aspects. The procedure is especially difficult for SMEs that have legacy systems and do not enjoy a vertiginous appropriation of ICT services. This thesis aims to explore the factors that facilitate or inhibit the decision to migrate to the cloud for these types of companies and their level of effect. A research model based on the DOI theory and the TOE framework was built. Finally, recommendations are given so that companies can evaluate to what extent it is convenient for them to move their resources to the cloud and suppliers adjust their solutions to their needs.Maestrí

Improving Access to Information through Conceptual Classification

Overwhelming the users with large amount of information on the Web has resulted in users' inability to find the information and their dissatisfaction with available information searching and filtering systems. On the other hand, the information is distributed over many websites and a large part of it (for example news) is updated frequently. Keeping track of the changes in huge amount of information is a real problem for users.   Due to the great impact the information has on people's lives and business decision-making, much research has been done on the efficient ways of accessing and analyzing the information. This thesis will propose a conceptual classification method and ranking of the information in order to provide better user access to a wider range of information, it also provides the information that may help in analyzing the global trends in various fields. In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this method, a feed aggregator system has been developed and evaluated through this thesis.   To improve the flexibility and adaptability of the system, we have adopted the agent-oriented software engineering architecture that has also helped facilitating the development process. In addition, since the system deals with storing and processing large amounts of information, that requires a large number of resources the cloud platform service has been used as a platform for deploying the application. The result was a cloud based software service that benefited from the unlimited on-demand resources.   To take advantage of the available features of public cloud computing platforms, those supporting the agent-oriented design, the multi-agent system was implemented by mapping the agents to the cloud computing services. In addition, the cloud queue service that is provided by some cloud providers such as Microsoft and Amazon was used to implement indirect communication among the agents in the multi-agent system.  M.S

A cloud-based collaborative virtual learning environment for the higher education institutions in the Sultanate of Oman.

Advances in cloud computing have made it possible for collaborative environments to be developed for educational services. However, some HEIs are still using traditional VLE tools which receive minimal utilisation by users mostly for uploading and downloading course materials. This study focuses on challenges and concerns that limit or even prohibit the use of a cloud-based collaborative virtual learning environment (CBCVLE). More specifically, this study considers the influences of Omani culture upon utilisation of CBCVLEs. A mixed methods research approach is adopted which includes a preliminary study, a questionnaire-based survey, and a set of interviews. The issues are identified by reviewing the related literature and the surveys and grouping them under five headings: (1) ICT infrastructure and services, (2) operational environment, (3) user’s experience and expectations, (4) factors affecting the use and acceptance, and (5) cultural influences. The findings indicate lack of sufficient ICT infrastructure and services, as well as insufficient financial resources in some higher education institutions for establishing their own ICT infrastructures. Moreover, the findings highlight users’ experience as an important influence for utilisation of CBCVLEs. Regarding the operational environment, a wide range of concerns and challenges are identified by participants in the surveys. A number of issues are found to have an effect on the use of VLE tools and collaborative environments. Factors affecting the use and acceptance of a CBCVLE are also identified and classified as motivators or deterrents. Most importantly, cultural influences are found to be critical and vital for the use of CBCVLE. Family, religion, language, customs and traditions and gender can have a critical effect on users’ participation in collaborative projects. The study’s findings contribute to a better understanding and promotion of high utilisation and acceptance of CBCVLEs. A novel framework is proposed which incorporates key elements and their relationships associated with a cloud-based collaborative environment. The framework aims to mitigate issues and factors influencing low utilisation and the acceptance of CBCVLEs

A performance measurement model for cloud computing applications

Cloud Computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources. One of the main objectives of this technology is processing and storing very large amounts of data by means of Cloud Computing Applications. Sometimes, anomalies and defects found in the Cloud platforms affect the performance of these applications resulting in degradation of the Cloud performance. These anomalies can be identified by performance concepts of Cloud Computing based on software engineering quality models. One of the challenges in Cloud Computing is how to analyze the performance of Cloud Computing Applications in order to determine the main factors which affect the quality of the Cloud. Performance measurement results are very important because they help to detect the source of the degradation of the Cloud and, as a consequence, improve its performance. Furthermore, such results can be used in future resource planning stages or for the design of Service Level Agreements. This thesis presents Cloud Computing Application concepts that are directly related to the measurement of performance from a quantitative viewpoint. One of the challenges in defining such concepts is how to determine what type of relationships exist between the various performance base measures that define the performance concepts in a Cloud environment. For example, what is the extent of the relationship between CPU processing time and performance concepts such as time behavior? In addition, this thesis proposes a performance measurement model for Cloud Computing Applications, which integrates software quality concepts from ISO 25010 and makes use of the Taguchi´s method for the design of experiments in order to present an example of how to apply the model to a practical case

Cloud Computing: caracterización de los impactos positivos obtenidos por la utilización del modelo Cloud Computing por las pymes, basado en la tipología de modelos de negocio de este tipo de empresas

[ES] El Cloud Computing produce importantes beneficios a las empresas usuarias, en especial a las pymes. A través de él estas empresas tienen mejor acceso a las tecnologías de la información que necesitan para su funcionamiento. Según las estadísticas de utilización del cloud computing, estas empresas hacen un uso limitado de este tipo de servicios. El objetivo del presente trabajo es contribuir a potenciar la utilización del cloud por parte de las pymes. Según nuestro diagnóstico, el primer problema es del desconocimiento del cloud por parte de las pymes. Para abordar este problema se realiza una descripción del cloud computing y se analizan los beneficios que les proporciona a las empresas usuarias. Para contribuir a convencer a los empresarios de las ventajas que el uso del cloud les proporciona, se aborda el cloud desde una óptica empresarial y para ello se propone un modelo de negocio tipo para las pymes, para posteriormente relacionar los bloques en que se puede descomponer el citado modelo de negocio con las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación adecuadas para el funcionamiento de la empresa, accedidas a través del Cloud.Fons Gómez, FJ. (2014). Cloud Computing: caracterización de los impactos positivos obtenidos por la utilización del modelo Cloud Computing por las pymes, basado en la tipología de Modelos de Negocio de este tipo de empresas. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/38864.Archivo delegad

A real-time simulation-based optimisation environment for industrial scheduling

n order to cope with the challenges in industry today, such as changes in product diversity and production volume, manufacturing companies are forced to react more flexibly and swiftly. Furthermore, in order for them to survive in an ever-changing market, they also need to be highly competitive by achieving near optimal efficiency in their operations. Production scheduling is vital to the success of manufacturing systems in industry today, because the near optimal allocation of resources is essential in remaining highly competitive. The overall aim of this study is the advancement of research in manufacturing scheduling through the exploration of more effective approaches to address complex, real-world manufacturing flow shop problems. The methodology used in the thesis is in essence a combination of systems engineering, algorithmic design and empirical experiments using real-world scenarios and data. Particularly, it proposes a new, web services-based, industrial scheduling system framework, called OPTIMISE Scheduling System (OSS), for solving real-world complex scheduling problems. OSS, as implemented on top of a generic web services-based simulation-based optimisation (SBO) platform called OPTIMISE, can support near optimal and real-time production scheduling in a distributed and parallel computing environment. Discrete-event simulation (DES) is used to represent and flexibly cope with complex scheduling problems without making unrealistic assumptions which are the major limitations of existing scheduling methods proposed in the literature. At the same time, the research has gone beyond existing studies of simulation-based scheduling applications, because the OSS has been implemented in a real-world industrial environment at an automotive manufacturer, so that qualitative evaluations and quantitative comparisons of scheduling methods and algorithms can be made with the same framework. Furthermore, in order to be able to adapt to and handle many different types of real-world scheduling problems, a new hybrid meta-heuristic scheduling algorithm that combines priority dispatching rules and genetic encoding is proposed. This combination is demonstrated to be able to handle a wider range of problems or a current scheduling problem that may change over time, due to the flexibility requirements in the real-world. The novel hybrid genetic representation has been demonstrated effective through the evaluation in the real-world scheduling problem using real-world data