Cloud Computing - A Classification, Business Models, and Research Directions

The article describes a technical classification of Grid and Cloud Computing for a profound discussion on the business opportunities of the Cloud Computing paradigm. For this purpose, we present a framework for business models in Clouds. With the help of this framework business models can be placed at infrastructure, platform or application level. Subsequently, we discuss currently existing Cloud services which are integrated into the framework as well as categorized according to their pricing model and service type. Finally, the paper discusses challenges that have to be mastered in order to make the Cloud vision come true, such as the development of a Cloud API, the pricing of complex services, as well as security and reliability.