SALOON: a platform for selecting and configuring cloud environments

Migrating legacy systems or deploying a new application to a cloud environment has recently become very trendy, because the number of cloud providers available is still increasing. These cloud environments provide a wide range of resources at different levels of functionality, which must be appropriately configured by stakeholders for the application to run properly. Handling this variability during the configuration and deployment stages is known as a complex and error‐prone process, usually made in an ad hoc manner. In this paper, we propose SALOON, a software product lines‐based platform to face these issues. We describe the architecture of the SALOON platform, which relies on feature models combined with a domain model used to select among cloud environments a well‐suited one. SALOON supports stakeholders while configuring the selected cloud environment in a consistent way and automates the deployment of such configurations through the generation of executable configuration scripts. This paper also reports on some experiments, showing that using SALOON significantly reduces time to configure a cloud environment compared with a manual approach and provides a reliable way to find a correct and suitable configuration. Moreover, our empirical evaluation shows that our approach is effective and scalable to properly deal with a significant number of cloud environments. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

[1]  Laurence Duchien,et al.  Automated Selection and Configuration of Cloud Environments Using Software Product Lines Principles , 2014, 2014 IEEE 7th International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[2]  Fatima-Zahra Belouadha,et al.  Review of Software Product Line models used to model cloud applications , 2013, 2013 ACS International Conference on Computer Systems and Applications (AICCSA).

[3]  Antonio Ruiz Cortés,et al.  Using Java CSP Solvers in the Automated Analyses of Feature Models , 2005, GTTSE.

[4]  Wil M. P. van der Aalst.  Configurable Services in the Cloud: Supporting Variability While Enabling Cross-Organizational Process Mining , 2010, OTM Conferences.

[5]  Klaus Pohl,et al.  Software Product Line Engineering - Foundations, Principles, and Techniques , 2005 .

[6]  Ilka Philippow,et al.  EXTENDING FEATURE DIAGRAMS WITH UML MULTIPLICITIES , 2002 .

[7]  Roberto Di Cosmo,et al.  Towards a Formal Component Model for the Cloud , 2012, SEFM.

[8]  Kyo Chul Kang,et al.  Feature-Oriented Domain Analysis (FODA) Feasibility Study , 1990 .

[9]  Romain Rouvoy,et al.  A Federated Multi-cloud PaaS Infrastructure , 2012, 2012 IEEE Fifth International Conference on Cloud Computing.

[10]  Haiyan Zhao,et al.  A BDD-Based Approach to Verifying Clone-Enabled Feature Models' Constraints and Customization , 2008, ICSR.

[11]  Klaus Pohl,et al.  Software Product Line Engineering , 2005 .

[12]  Stefan Kowalewski,et al.  Model-driven support for product line evolution on feature level , 2012, J. Syst. Softw..

[13]  Sooyong Park,et al.  Dynamic Software Product Lines , 2008, Computer.

[14]  Xavier Lorca,et al.  Choco: an Open Source Java Constraint Programming Library , 2008 .

[15]  Antonio Ruiz Cortés,et al.  Automated Reasoning on Feature Models , 2005, Seminal Contributions to Information Systems Engineering.

[16]  Klaus Schmid,et al.  A systematic analysis of textual variability modeling languages , 2013, SPLC '13.

[17]  Martin Glinz,et al.  On Non-Functional Requirements , 2007, 15th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE 2007).

[18]  K. Czarnecki,et al.  Cardinality-Based Feature Modeling and Constraints : A Progress Report , 2005 .

[19]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  Reverse engineering feature models , 2011, 2011 33rd International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE).

[20]  Douglas C. Schmidt,et al.  Model-driven auto-scaling of green cloud computing infrastructure , 2012, Future Gener. Comput. Syst..

[21]  Andreas Classen,et al.  A text-based approach to feature modelling: Syntax and semantics of TVL , 2011, Sci. Comput. Program..

[22]  Laurence Duchien,et al.  Cardinality-based feature models with constraints: a pragmatic approach , 2013, SPLC '13.

[23]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  Formalizing cardinality-based feature models and their specialization , 2005, Softw. Process. Improv. Pract..

[24]  Gunter Saake,et al.  Multi-dimensional variability modeling , 2011, VaMoS.

[25]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  Feature and Meta-Models in Clafer: Mixed, Specialized, and Coupled , 2010, SLE.

[26]  Marty Humphrey,et al.  An automated approach to cloud storage service selection , 2011, ScienceCloud '11.

[27]  Frank Budinsky,et al.  EMF: Eclipse Modeling Framework 2.0 , 2009 .

[28]  Rajkumar Buyya,et al.  CloudSim: a toolkit for modeling and simulation of cloud computing environments and evaluation of resource provisioning algorithms , 2011, Softw. Pract. Exp..

[29]  Pierre-Yves Schobbens,et al.  Feature Diagrams: A Survey and a Formal Semantics , 2006, 14th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'06).

[30]  Antonio Ruiz Cortés,et al.  Automated analysis of feature models: challenges ahead , 2006, CACM.

[31]  Rajkumar Buyya,et al.  Article in Press Future Generation Computer Systems ( ) – Future Generation Computer Systems Cloud Computing and Emerging It Platforms: Vision, Hype, and Reality for Delivering Computing as the 5th Utility , 2022 .

[32]  Antonio Ruiz Cortés,et al.  Migrating to the Cloud - A Software Product Line based Analysis , 2013, CLOSER.

[33]  Jörn Kuhlenkamp,et al.  Cloud Service Selection Based on Variability Modeling , 2012, ICSOC.

[34]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  Generative Programming for Embedded Software: An Industrial Experience Report , 2002, GPCE.

[35]  Isidro Ramos,et al.  Cardinality-Based Feature Modeling and Model-Driven Engineering: Fitting them Together , 2010, VaMoS.

[36]  Frank Budinsky,et al.  Eclipse Modeling Framework , 2003 .

[37]  Klaus Schmid,et al.  Variability in Service-Oriented Systems: An Analysis of Existing Approaches , 2012, ICSOC.

[38]  Randy H. Katz,et al.  Above the Clouds: A Berkeley View of Cloud Computing , 2009 .

[39]  Klaus Schmid,et al.  Domain-Oriented Customization of Service Platforms: Combining Product Line Engineering and Service-Oriented Computing , 2013, J. Univers. Comput. Sci..

[40]  Camille Salinesi,et al.  Transforming Attribute and Clone-enabled Feature Models into Constraint Programs over Finite Domains , 2011, ENASE.

[41]  Krzysztof Czarnecki,et al.  Staged configuration through specialization and multilevel configuration of feature models , 2005, Softw. Process. Improv. Pract..

[42]  Philippe Rohou,et al.  PaaSage Model Based Cloud Platform Upperware Deliverable D 8 . 2 , 2014 .

[43]  P. Mell,et al.  The NIST Definition of Cloud Computing , 2011 .

[44]  Paul Clements,et al.  Software product lines - practices and patterns , 2001, SEI series in software engineering.

[45]  Jeffrey O. Kephart,et al.  The Vision of Autonomic Computing , 2003, Computer.