Role of Service Brokers in Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is currently the most hyped and popular paradigm in the domain of distributed computing. Multiple vendors are providing infrastructure, platform, and software-related cloud products or solutions, and the number of such vendors is growing rapidly. But the reality is that there is very little in the form of standards in general and interoperability standards in particular. This leads to a challenging situation for cloud service consumers as they need to use solutions provided by multiple cloud vendors in order to fulfill their business requirements, and the lack of standardization leads to lack of interoperability among the solutions provided by varied vendors. Service brokers act as intermediaries between the cloud service providers and consumers. The role of service brokers becomes critical in situations that need integration among multiple systems as they bridge the interoperability gaps among multiple cloud solutions and thus compensate for the lack of standards. They do so by acting as agents adding value on behalf of the service consumers. The usage of such cloud brokers also helps to future-proof the solution as service brokers add a layer of indirection, thus enabling loose coupling among the cloud service consumers and providers. The aim of this chapter is to review the role of cloud service brokers in cloud computing. The review includes consolidation of the definitions and characteristics of cloud service brokers, review of the current brokerage solutions, and interfacing requirements. Also presented are a high-level cloud service broker functional architecture, criteria for selection of a cloud service broker, future trends and review of benefits, and challenges of using cloud service brokers.