Mapping Application Requirements to Cloud Resources

Cloud Computing has created a paradigm shift in software development. Many developers now use the Cloud as an affordable platform on which to deploy business solutions. One outstanding challenge is the integration of different Cloud services (or resources), offered by different Cloud providers, when building a Cloud-oriented business solution. Typically each provider has a different means of describing Cloud resources and uses a different application programming interface to acquire Cloud resources. Developers need to make complex decisions involving multiple Cloud products, different Cloud implementations, different deployment options, and different programming approaches. In this paper, we propose a model for discovering Cloud resources in a multi-provider environment. We study a financial use case scenario and suggest the use of a provider-agnostic approach which hides the complex implementation details for mapping the application requirements to Cloud resources.