Using cloud SaaS to ensure interoperability and standardization in heterogeneous Cloud based environment

Abstract

During the last years, because of the evolution of Cloud applications and the attractive advantages given to consumers, many companies outsource their data and Information Technology (IT) system to the Cloud based technology. With the growth in the number of Cloud Service Providers, many enterprises and organizations can use and associate services from multiple providers. There may be many Internet protocols for service access standards that are used to ensure interoperability between users browser and Web server, such as Representational State Transfer (REST) and Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Each service has its specific characteristics such as authentication and security requirements. Hence, Cloud providers attempt to lock customers into proprietary interfaces so consumers can find themselves at not expects inevitable vendor lock-in. Therefore, the focus of our paper is to propose a solution to this problem by using Cloud intermediate between Cloud providers and consumer in heterogeneous Cloud environments interfaces. This is to achieve benefits such as standardization and interoperability, minimizing lock-in of Cloud providers. To reach such benefits, we propose a Cloud SaaS based on two interfaces and an internet component. These interfaces are used in Cloud Consumer and Provider sides and therefore guarantee communication between Cloud Consumer and Provider using different Internet protocols for Web service access such as REST and SOAP. Our approach guarantees interoperability and standardization in heterogeneous Cloud based environments because in this case Cloud Consumer and Provider using REST interface can communicate easily with Cloud Provider and Consumer using SOAP interface.