Decision Making Models on the Market of Cloud Services

Introduction. Optimization can be applied in developing profitability management tools for a cloud service broker working according to a certain business model. On behalf of the managing telecommunications holding company (telecommunications operator), this broker integrates, aggregates and configures software and data storage services of third-party Internet software vendors. Such a broker receives only fixed commissions from this company, based on the subscription fee, but does not pay royalties to an Internet software vendor and does not receive payments from the sale of service packages. The purpose. The cloud broker faces the problem of limited human resources required to carry out the relevant legal, technical and economic activities. In addition, the broker faces the problem of uncertainty in sales, service prices, the share of resource use, or the risk of losing operational and financial goals. Results. To run a broker?s business efficiently, one needs to find services and their bundles that increase profitability and reduce financial risk by solving certain optimization problems. Information on such services is needed to support negotiations on fixed and variable commissions, as well as to prioritize services and their packages to be provided. Thus, for the cloud services broker, both profitability management tools and services portfolio development tools are useful. In general, a cloud service broker is an organization that negotiates the relationships between cloud service clients and Internet software vendors. Cloud broker can be created on the basis of different business models regarding the type of service (platform, infrastructure, software), type of clients (enterprise, household), functions performed (identity management, accounting, billing, location, etc.), the degree of rebranding, measures of aggregation of services and other criteria. Conclusions. Different cloud brokers have different attitudes to choice of important solutions for their businesses. Solutions can relate to pricing, capacity planning and utilization in combination with service quality, security, scalability and other issues. Keywords: optimization, portfolio, uncertainty, Boolean variables, revenue generation.

Localising democracy on an uneven playing field: the roles of ward councillors in the City of Cape Town

The democratic transition in South Africa was accompanied by large-scale institutional re-engineering at all levels of government. This was an extremely complex process in local government, where a racially fragmented system of municipalities underwent extensive reorganisation. Despite this, historical patterns of settlement based on race have entrenched socio-economic inequalities and highly uneven experiences of local democracy. Against this backdrop, this paper investigates the differing roles of ward councillors. It examines a stratified sample of low-, mixed- and high-income wards in the City of Cape Town, and finds general yet qualified support for a view that ward councillor roles are conditioned by the socio-economic character of the areas they represent. In broad terms, councillors in low-income wards play a service broker and conflict mitigator role; councillors in mixed-income wards act as reconcilers and integrators; and councillors in high-income wards perform a placeholder and maintainer role.

Design and Implementation of a Framework for Multi-Cloud Service Broker

Cloud service broker (CSB) as an emerging technology intermediates heterogeneous multiple cloud services for both the providers and consumers. Recently, Cloud computing & mobile cloud computing applications (MCA) have gained an enormous popularity, which has led to an increasing need for the development of platform independent Middleware/CSB to support all types of cloud service consumer applications including x86*x64 based standard OS & ARM based mobile applications, web browsers, etc. Developing Platform Independent Hybrid CSB, however, is not an easy task. Developers have to deal with difficulties inherent from the different cloud controllers, cloud service providers environments, clients’ application types, network connection types (wired, wireless), GPS (Global Positioning Systems) information of cloud resources and clients’ etc. In this thesis, the proposed design of a middleware/CSB that abstracts the real-time resources of various clouds (private, public, home, Local) and stores the resources in its own Database. It will also store clients requests then analyzes the request to find the nearest available servers which is running the appropriate applications. Then the CSB will forward the destination servers information to the clients. Thesis goal is to achieve context awareness, location awareness, platform independence, portability, efficiency, and usability. Portability is achieved by following the J2ME platform specifications. The middleware has been implemented and tested on a real time Openstack cloud using by our newly designed Android Clients and platform independent Mozilla Firefox browser. The performance measurements of the middleware show that it achieves its efficiency requirements. Furthermore, the middleware’s database can be used for resource algorithm, pattern analysis, and for future requirements.

Design and Implementation of a Framework for Multi-Cloud Service Broker

Cloud service broker (CSB) as an emerging technology intermediates heterogeneous multiple cloud services for both the providers and consumers. Recently, Cloud computing & mobile cloud computing applications (MCA) have gained an enormous popularity, which has led to an increasing need for the development of platform independent Middleware/CSB to support all types of cloud service consumer applications including x86*x64 based standard OS & ARM based mobile applications, web browsers, etc. Developing Platform Independent Hybrid CSB, however, is not an easy task. Developers have to deal with difficulties inherent from the different cloud controllers, cloud service providers environments, clients’ application types, network connection types (wired, wireless), GPS (Global Positioning Systems) information of cloud resources and clients’ etc. In this thesis, the proposed design of a middleware/CSB that abstracts the real-time resources of various clouds (private, public, home, Local) and stores the resources in its own Database. It will also store clients requests then analyzes the request to find the nearest available servers which is running the appropriate applications. Then the CSB will forward the destination servers information to the clients. Thesis goal is to achieve context awareness, location awareness, platform independence, portability, efficiency, and usability. Portability is achieved by following the J2ME platform specifications. The middleware has been implemented and tested on a real time Openstack cloud using by our newly designed Android Clients and platform independent Mozilla Firefox browser. The performance measurements of the middleware show that it achieves its efficiency requirements. Furthermore, the middleware’s database can be used for resource algorithm, pattern analysis, and for future requirements.

Optimal Cloud Service Provider Selection Based on QoS Metrics

There are thousands of providers obtainable in the market, and more and more are being added to the service list every day. All of these providers claim that the services given to them are distinctive and hassle-free. To check their claim, the cloud service broker (CSB) verifies the quality of service (QoS) of the cloud service providers (CSPs) and the level of user needs. Depending on the requirements of the cloud consumer (CC), CSB allocates a CSP to it. This paper proposed optimal cloud service provider selection (OCSPS) based on QoS metrics. The CC would handovers the demand to the CSB for optimal CSP selection using QoS. Once the CSP selection process is complete, the outcomes would become back to the CC. Entire demands created to CCs are saved in the request buffer (RB) in the CSB. When a specific request is fulfilled, the subsequent demand would take from this RB. The experimental result shows that the proposed OCSPS algorithm takes less time for CSP ranking and optimal CSP selection.

Efficient and Cost-effective Service Broker Policy Based on User Priority in VIKOR for Cloud Computing

Cloud computing has become a practical solution for processing big data. Cloud service providers have heterogeneous resources and offer a wide range of services with various processing capabilities. Typically, cloud users set preferences when working on a cloud platform. Some users tend to prefer the cheapest services for the given tasks, whereas other users prefer solutions that ensure the shortest response time or seek solutions that produce services ensuring an acceptable response time at a reasonable cost. The main responsibility of the cloud service broker is identifying the best data centre to be used for processing user requests. Therefore, to maintain a high level of quality of service, it is necessity to develop a service broker policy that is capable of selecting the best data centre, taking into consideration user preferences (e.g. cost, response time). This paper proposes an efficient and cost-effective plan for a service broker policy in a cloud environment based on the concept of VIKOR. The proposed solution relies on a multi-criteria decision-making technique aimed at generating an optimized solution that incorporates user preferences. The simulation results show that the proposed policy outperforms most recent policies designed for the cloud environment in many aspects, including processing time, response time, and processing cost. KEYWORDS Cloud computing, data centre selection, service broker, VIKOR, user priorities