Live Performance of Cloud Brokers in a Federation

Cloud Brokering is an emerging service in the cloud computing model. This is more evident in a federated cloud structure. A cloud broker is an entity (real or virtual) that manages the use, performance and delivery of cloud services, in addition to enabling the negotiations and relationships between cloud providers and cloud consumers. The definition is a simple one in concept, but as the cloud computing model evolves and matures, it is becoming increasingly evident that unlike other actors in the NIST definitions, the complexity involved in the efficient implementation of autonomic cloud brokering is an open challenge. While several studies are available in literature using simulations to derive results on experiments using the cloud infrastructure, the real life scenarios where cloud based services are derived and utilized are different and varied, involving several intangible variables that cannot be emulated in a simulator. This study describes a real life scenario of an cloud broker implementation under a federated cloud infrastructure. The paper analyzes different use case scenarios which can exist while a cloud broker provisions x-as-a-service. Different, real time load conditions are generated and emulated in a live use case on the author’s private cloud and cloud bursting is directed towards the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud infrastructure. The test bed is a hybrid cloud with customized reporting. The study also highlights real world issues plaguing the cloud brokerage framework and indicates ways to mitigate the same using the federated cloud infrastructure combining the public cloud and a private cloud while viewing the problem from the perspective of a cloud broker.