A QoS-based approach for cloud-service matchmaking, selection and composition using the Semantic Web
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JSIT-01-2017-0006 |
| Published date | 11 March 2019 |
| Pages | 63-89 |
| Date | 11 March 2019 |
| Author | Kirit J. Modi,Sanjay Garg |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Information systems,Information & communications technology |
A QoS-based approach for
cloud-service matchmaking,
selection and composition using
the Semantic Web
Kirit J. Modi
U.V. Patel College of Engineering, Ganpat University, Kherva, India, and
Sanjay Garg
Nirma University of Science and Technology, Ahmedabad, India
Abstract
Purpose –Cloud computing provides a dynamic, heterogeneous and elastic environment by offering
accessible ‘cloud services’to end-users. The tasks involved in making cloud services available, such as
matchmaking, selection and composition,are essential and closely related to each other. Integration of these
tasks is critical for optimal composition and performance of the cloud service platform. More efficient
solutions could be developed by consideringcloud service tasks collectively, but the research and academic
community have so far only consideredthese tasks individually. The purpose of this paper is to propose an
integratedQoS-based approach for cloud service matchmaking,selection and composition using the Semantic
Web.
Design/methodology/approach –In this paper, the authors propose a new approach using the
Semantic Web and quality of service (QoS) model to perform cloud service matchmaking, selection and
composition, to fulfil the requirements of an end user. In the Semantic Web, the authors develop cloud
ontologies to providesemantic descriptions to the service provider and requester,so as to automate the cloud
service tasks. Thispaper considers QoS parameters, such as availability,throughput, response time and cost,
for qualityassurance and enhanced user satisfaction.
Findings –This paper focuson the development of an integrated frameworkand approach for cloud service
life cycle phases,such as discovery, selection and compositionusing QoS, to enhance user satisfaction and the
Semantic Web, to achieve automation.To evaluate performance and usefulness, this paper uses a scenario
based on a Healthcare Decision-MakingSystem (HDMS). Results derived through the experimentprove that
the proposedprototype performs well for the defined set of cloud-servicestasks.
Originality/value –As a novel concept, our proposed integrated framework and approach for cloud
service matchmaking, selection and composition based on the Semantic Web and QoS characterisitcs
(availability, response time,throughput and cost), as part of the service level agreement (SLA) will help the
end user to match, select and filter cloud services and integrate cloud-service providers into a multi-cloud
environment.
Keywords Cloud-service, Cloud ontology, Cloud-service composition,
Cloud-service matchmaking, Cloud-service selection, Healthcare decision making system
Paper type Research paper
1. Introduction
Cloud computing is built up from a collection of computers, that are interconnected and
virtualized, so as to provide a unified set of defined services through a negotiated service
level agreement(SLA) (Buyyaet al.,2008). Cloud services can deliver on-demand computing
and storage resources to customers from remote data centers as a single utility (Drago,
Cloud-service
matchmaking
63
Received19 January 2017
Revised3 September 2017
8 January2018
28April 2018
20September 2018
5 October2018
Accepted20 November 2018
Journalof Systems and
InformationTechnology
Vol.21 No. 1, 2019
pp. 63-89
© Emerald Publishing Limited
1328-7265
DOI 10.1108/JSIT-01-2017-0006
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/1328-7265.htm
2013). The cloud-computing model offersthree types of services: infrastructure as a service
(IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and softwareas a service (SaaS). Moreover, it offers four
delivery models to address large-scale computing needs: private, public, hybrid and
community (Jadeja and Modi, 2012). Given the large and ever-growing family of cloud
services available over the web, the tasks of service discovery, selection and composition
have become a daunting challenge (Joshi et al.,2014) for programmers to come up with
efficient solutions. Several approaches to performing cloud service matchmaking, selection
and composition on an individual basis have been proposed (Garg et al.,2013;Guidi et al.,
2014;Cavalcanteet al.,2011;Jrad et al., 2012;Jrad et al.,2015;Liu et al., 2014;Garg et al.,2016;
Ye et al.,2011;Ye et al.,2012), all with the goal ofenhancing human efforts and cutting cost
to provide the best solution. To further complicate the situation, there are multiple cloud
service providers that offer the same kinds of services at the functional level. This creates
difficulties in matching, selecting and integrating services offered by different providers
based on functionalaspects.
As a case-study example for our protocol, we consider a hypothetical web-based
healthcare system. In the current healthcare scenario, medical organizations obtain a large
amount of information from various sources, including hospitals, medical laboratories,
research organizations and health information centers. It is essential to combine these data
to make it accessible online, but the current methods for exchange and integration of
existing medical informationrequire inefficient and time-consuming manual processing, are
costly and overly complex. Overcoming these problems and streamlining the use of cloud
services in the healthcare sector is one of the major goals of our proposal. Our protocol
provides an integrated approach for handling cloud service tasks by considering
nonfunctional parameters, such as availability, response time, throughput and cost, to
enhance user satisfaction and ensure quality of service. We also developed an ontology
model for cloud service providers and users to allow them, to achieve interoperability and
automation of cloud servicetasks.
Major contributionsof this paper are as follows:
to propose a QoS and semantic web-based framework for cloud service
matchmaking, selection and composition;
to develop an approach for cloud service matchmaking, selection and composition
using QoS parameters and a semantic web model;
to model the cloud ontology for service providers and requesters to utilize semantic
descriptions; and
to develop a prototype-healthcare decision-making system (HDMS).
The paper is organized into sections beginning with Section 1 above. Section 2 reviews
related works, while Section 3 presents our proposal for an integrated framework and
approach to cloud service matchmaking, selection and composition. Section 4 describes the
cloud ontology developed for service providers and requesters. Section 5 presents and
discusses the experimentalresults of using CloudSim to create a cloud-based HDMS. Section
6 details the conclusions and highlights future work. Definitions of concepts related to the
proposed work are provided in Appendix.
2. Related works
This section highlights some of the key contributions made by the cloud research
community for understanding of cloud service lifecycle tasks, such as matchmaking,
selection and compositionalong with issues and mechanisms to support the work presented
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