Evaluation of Cloud Computing Tools for Virtual Enterprises

Collaborative Networks (CN) has arisen as a prominent enterprise strategy for leveraging new sustainable models, to Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) in more particular. There are several types of CNs. This paper focuses on the Virtual Enterprise (VE) type, which can be defined as a dynamic and temporary network of SMEs that collaborate with each other towards achieving a common goal, sharing resources, knowledge, costs, risks and benefits. In a VE the diverse kinds of transactions among its members are performed pretty much via Internet, demanding a reasonable amount of investment on IT and human resources from the enterprises. However, SMEs usually have large technical and financial limitations. The underlying premise of this work is that VE members can also share IT resources so as to decrease their general costs. Cloud computing has become a sound approach nowadays and there are plenty of cloud-based tools already available. Therefore, it is important to SMEs knowing which ones fit the VE requirements best. This is the core goal of this paper, also identifying such requirements, the requirements to evaluate such cloud-based tools, and making a comparison among them. Results are assessed and some reflections about the feasibility of a cloud approach for VEs are presented in the end.

[1]  Iraklis Paraskakis,et al.  Software Co-development in the Era of Cloud Application Platforms and Ecosystems: The Case of CAST , 2012, PRO-VE.

[2]  H. Saliah-Hassane,et al.  Proposal for a Cloud Computing solution and application in a pedagogical virtual organization , 2014 .

[3]  Jianxin Li,et al.  CloudVO: Building a Secure Virtual Organization for Multiple Clouds Collaboration , 2010, 2010 11th ACIS International Conference on Software Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Networking and Parallel/Distributed Computing.

[4]  Mark Kasunic,et al.  Measuring Systems Interoperability: Challenges and Opportunities , 2001 .

[5]  Arturo Molina,et al.  Virtual Breeding Environment : A First Approach to Understand Working and Sharing Principles , 2004 .

[6]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Collaborative networks: a new scientific discipline , 2005, J. Intell. Manuf..

[7]  István Mezgár,et al.  The challenge of networked enterprises for cloud computing interoperability , 2014, Comput. Ind..

[8]  Chen Jingjing,et al.  Industrial clusters' information based on SaaS model , 2011, 2011 International Conference on Business Management and Electronic Information.

[9]  A. C. Gil.  Como elaborar projetos de pesquisa , 2010 .

[10]  Leon Urbas,et al.  An Innovative Virtual Enterprise Approach to Agile Micro and SME-Based Collaboration Networks , 2013, PRO-VE.

[11]  Promise Mvelase,et al.  Virtual enterprise model for enabling cloud computing for SMMEs , 2011, ISWSA '11.

[12]  Tim Wright,et al.  Cloud Computing: Web-Based Applications That Change the Way You Work and Collaborate Online , 2009 .

[13]  Nan Jiang,et al.  A Cloud Based Data Integration Framework , 2012, PRO-VE.

[14]  Iraklis Paraskakis,et al.  Cloud Service Brokerage: Strengthening Service Resilience in Cloud-Based Virtual Enterprises , 2015, PRO-VE.

[15]  Hong Cai,et al.  Research on producer service innovation in home-textile industrial cluster based on cloud computing platform , 2010, Proceedings of 2010 IEEE International Conference on Service Operations and Logistics, and Informatics.

[16]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Cloud-Based Collaborative Business Services Provision , 2013, ICEIS.

[17]  Janne Järvinen,et al.  A Virtual Integration - The Management Control System in a Multinational Enterprise , 2008 .

[18]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises: Networking Industrial Enterprises, IFIP TC5 WG5.3 / PRODNET Working Conference on Infrastructures for Virtual Enterprises (PRO-VE '99), October 27-28, 1999, Porto, Portugal , 1999, Working Conference on Virtual Enterprises.

[19]  E. d'Avolio,et al.  Assessing the maturity of collaborative networks: A case study analysis in the Italian fashion SMEs , 2014, 2014 International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation (ICE).

[20]  Jun Ma,et al.  Cloud computing based logistics resource dynamic integration and collaboration , 2012, Proceedings of the 2012 IEEE 16th International Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work in Design (CSCWD).

[21]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  Methods and Tools for Collaborative Networked Organizations , 2008 .

[22]  Ivan K. W. Lai,et al.  Knowledge cloud system for network collaboration: A case study in medical service industry in China , 2012, Expert Syst. Appl..

[23]  Pearl Brereton,et al.  Performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering , 2006, ICSE.

[24]  Christiane Gresse von Wangenheim,et al.  Supporting Processes for Collaborative SaaS , 2013, PRO-VE.

[25]  Klaus-Dieter Thoben,et al.  Managing collaboration performance to govern virtual organizations , 2010, J. Intell. Manuf..

[26]  Andrzej M. Goscinski,et al.  Toward dynamic and attribute based publication, discovery and selection for cloud computing , 2010, Future Gener. Comput. Syst..

[27]  Hamideh Afsarmanesh,et al.  The Virtual Enterprise Concept , 1999, PRO-VE.

[28]  Promise Mvelase,et al.  A comparative analysis of pricing models for enterprise cloud platforms , 2013, 2013 Africon.