Decision support tool for IoT service providers for utilization of multi clouds

The Internet of Things (IoT) refers to uniquely identifiable objects (things) and their virtual representations in an Internet-like structure. IoT service Providers (IoTSP), i.e. the companies who intend to offer IoT-based services, may utilize cloud computing which offers a cheap, ubiquitous, unlimited and elastic solution for the supporting infrastructure. In this way the IoTSP will deploy its Virtual Machines (VM) on various cloud service providers (multi clouds) to have satisfactory coverage and performance for its globally distributed users. In this context, one of the major problems is to minimize the overall cost of cloud infrastructure while keeping satisfactory level of performance. To achieve this the IoTSP has to cost-optimally place its VMs on the available cloud service providers. This paper proposes a decision support tool for IoTSP to find their cost-optimum VM placement on multi clouds. The tool comprises a cost estimation model as well as an optimization algorithm. Our decision support tool is examined by several simulation scenarios and the results demonstrate the working of the tool.