Concepedia

TLDR

Cloud computing is a disruptive technology that promises on‑demand provisioning of software, hardware, and data services, offering economies of scale for IT deployment while raising concerns over SLAs, security, privacy, power efficiency, data transfer bottlenecks, performance unpredictability, reliability, licensing, and ownership. This issue explores cloud computing architecture, management, SaaS and IaaS applications, service and data discovery, cross‑platform interoperability, and the monetization pathways for hosted applications. The articles address the design and operation of cloud infrastructures, focusing on architectural frameworks, management strategies, and interoperability mechanisms.

Abstract

Cloud computing is a disruptive technology with profound implications not only for Internet services but also for the IT sector as a whole. Its emergence promises to streamline the on-demand provisioning of software, hardware, and data as a service, achieving economies of scale in IT solutions' deployment and operation. This issue's articles tackle topics including architecture and management of cloud computing infrastructures, SaaS and IaaS applications, discovery of services and data in cloud computing infrastructures, and cross-platform interoperability. Still, several outstanding issues exist, particularly related to SLAs, security and privacy, and power efficiency. Other open issues include ownership, data transfer bottlenecks, performance unpredictability, reliability, and software licensing issues. Finally, hosted applications' business models must show a clear pathway to monetizing cloud computing. Several companies have already built Internet consumer services such as search, social networking, Web email, and online commerce that use cloud computing infrastructure. Above all, cloud computing's still unknown "killer application" will determine many of the challenges and the solutions we must develop to make this technology work in practice.