The Bullwhip Effect and VM Sprawl in the Cloud Supply Chain

The Bullwhip Effect is the result of problems occurring throughout nearly any type of supply chain. Whether it is surges in internal or external defects, every participant in a supply chain need to avoid it. This paper discusses the Bullwhip phenomenon and how it applies to the world of Cloud Computing. Comparisons are made between a traditional supply chain and the Cloud supply chain in order to observe how these relate with each other. This leads to the realisation of the main problem areas within the Cloud supply chain and its main defect, the VM Sprawl. Also we derived indicators for each of the problem areas, which can be seen as a sign of the Bullwhip Effect in a specific Cloud supply chain. Automation and monitoring are also considered, and a prototypical implementation has been developed to support this.