Towards an SPL-based monitoring middleware strategy for cloud computing applications

Abstract

Cloud-based applications are composed of services offered by distinct third-party cloud providers. The selection of the proper cloud services that fit the application needs is based on cloud-related information, i.e. properties of the services such as price, availability, response time, among others. Typically, applications rely on a middleware that abstracts away the burden of direct dealing with underlying mechanisms for service selection and communication with the cloud providers. In this context, in a previous work we already discussed the benefits of using the software product lines (SPL) paradigm for representing alternative cloud services and their properties, which is suitable for the process of choosing the proper services to compose the application. As most cloud-related information are dynamic and may change any time during the application execution, the continuous monitoring of such information is essential to ensure that the deployed application is composed of cloud services that adhere to the application requirements. In this paper we present an SPL-based monitoring middleware strategy to continuously monitoring the dynamic properties of cloud services used by an application.