Cloudware Operations and Management - Guide to Cloud Computing for Business and Technology Managers - page 380

can happen at different levels such as security, transport, message,
API, and protocol.
16. Integration : Is used to facilitate the combination or aggregation of
separately produced components or services to perform a larger
task, ensuring that the problems in their interactions are addressed
by using some intermediary tool, say, mediation. This module is
necessary for interfacing to the multiple service providers who do
not follow the same standards in terms of protocols, technology,
APIs, etc.
1 7. Semantic engine : A specialized entity (could be optional) that will
support the creation of a common understanding of and relation-
ships among entities in a domain by means of creation and usage
of ontologies. This module thus helps in easier mapping and under-
standing of services provided by different cloud vendors and helps
in creating ease of interoperability and common understanding
among cloud services provided by different vendors.
18. Rules management : Is a support functionality that is utilized by
many other modules to perform complex decision making and
evaluation functionality and also to map the business require-
ments in a declarative, easy-to-use manner that allows easy update
and changes.
18.4 Metrics for Interfacing to Cloud Service Providers
The cloud service providers provide mediation, optimization, and value-
addition functionality based on either business or technical requirements of
the corresponding cloud users. It is based on these business requirements,
specified by means of defined metrics, that the cloud service providers pro-
vide the best-fitting service to the users and/or perform necessary selection
and filtering of the cloud service providers.
The metrics relevant for interfacing with the cloud service providers are
as follows:
1. Business metrics
a. Cost of service : Is one of the most important criteria and may be
quite difficult to specify and calculate. Cost of service may be
divided into one-time and ongoing fixed costs. The cost may
be based on per hour/per transaction/volume of transfer, quota,
time of request, availability of resources, and so on. Other crite-
ria may be commercial versus noncommercial provider usage,