Cloud Management and Security

5 Automated Management Services

Automated management services are a key enabler for the wider adoption of Clouds. These services are complex to implement as they represent humans in different domains of expertise and their interactions. This chapter abstracts and analyzes the required Cloud automated management services. We start with the management services of the virtual layer, and then the management services of the application layer. The chapter also discusses the interdependencies amongst these services. Finally, we provide an example scenario using a multi-tier application deployment in Clouds.

5.1 Introduction

Automated management services are a key requirement of the Cloud infrastructure, as identified by NIST (definition in Chapter 1). These services are one of the key areas that distinguish Clouds from traditional enterprise infrastructure [1]. Such services provide Cloud computing with exceptional capabilities and new features. For example, scale per use, hiding the complexity of the infrastructure, automated higher reliability, availability, scalability, dependability, and resilience. These should help in providing trustworthy resilient Cloud computing, and should result in a cost reduction.

Moving the current Cloud infrastructure to the potential trustworthy Cloud infrastructure requires a set of trustworthy self-managed services (also referred to as middleware services). The services should be transparent to Cloud customers and should require minimal human intervention. ...