A new cloud services portability platform

Abstract

This research is motivated by several open research questions about cloud solutions, such as how to wisely choose a cloud host for services and how to change the cloud provider in an easy manner. The ability to move the services from one to another provider in a simpler manner is the definition of the cloud service portability, as an open research area which deserves more attention. In this paper we propose a new cloud portability service platform and we give an overview of the current trends in the area of cloud service portability, especially analyzing the TOSCA's approach. Our new platform proposal is based on establishing an adapter model,which offers the desired cloud portability. The new solution describes the services by a XML TOSCA approach aiming to build a custom Platform as a Service (PaaS) that can accept and exchange installations of any portable application. The scenario for the new approach assumes that the applications are described by appropriate installation requirements and application structure using the TOSCA specification and the platform performs the necessary installation according to the specification to continue with automatic deployment of application/services.