A network-oriented survey and open issues in cloud computing

Cloud computing represents an emerging paradigm in the framework of ICT, describing a computing model where business applications are allocated to a combination of connections, and software and services are accessed through a web browser over a network, known as “The Cloud.” This permits access to power computing through a variety of entry points and eliminates the need for organizations to install and run heavy duty applications on their computers; the data and software themselves are retrieved “on demand” like a utility service. In general, no unified and quantitative approach to analyze and design cloud computing architectures is available in the literature, as well as specific supporting technologies to control the QoS and ensure predictable performance. The chapter is aimed at studying networking solutions for “engineering” Cloud Computing architectures, with the final goal to provide a framework for enabling analysis, design and performance improvement of such architectures.