An Intermediary-Free Architecture For Optimized Service Allocation In A Cross-Platform Environment

<p>Cloud computing is a fast-growing technology that provides hard- ware networks storage services and interfaces as a service through a network (Miller 2008). The utilities are provided either as separate components or as a complete platform to meet the user's demand. Thus cloud users enjoy all the computing components as a service instantly and dynamically. The key char- acteristics of cloud computing include on-demand self-service ubiquitous net- work access location and device independence rapid elasticity and pay-per-use (Shroff 2010). This chapter discusses the basic concepts of cloud computing and outlines the motivation for this thesis. </p><p>PRELIMINARIES</p><p> When cloud compting originated it targeted only three major services (Leavitt 2009): Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). In recent times this has become a myth with anything being provided as a service i.e. XaaS has dawned. However IaaS and SaaS have still not lost their place as IaaS practically provides every comput- ing resource and gives users the ability to perform any task without any physical resource from their side whereas SaaS attracts users by providing them with soft- wares to perform any task giving them a lot of leisure time by saving the time taken for developing such softwares. The following subsections highlight the concepts of cloud computing which are necessary for understanding the work in this thesis.</p>