A brief review of the Internet history reveals the fact that the Internet evolved after the formation of primarily independent networks. Similarly, interconnected clouds, also called Inter-cloud, can be viewed as a natural evolution of cloud computing. Recent studies show the benefits in utilizing multiple clouds and present attempts for the realization of an Inter-cloud or federated cloud environment. However, cloud vendors have not taken into account cloud interoperability issues, and each cloud comes with its own solution and interfaces for services. This survey initially discusses all the relevant aspects motivating cloud interoperability. Furthermore, it categorizes and identifies possible cloud interoperability scenarios and architectures. The spectrum of challenges and obstacles that the Inter-cloud realization is faced with are covered, a taxonomy of them is provided, and fitting enablers that tackle each challenge are identified. All these aspects require a comprehensive review of the state of the art, including ongoing projects and studies in the area. We conclude by discussing future directions and trends toward the holistic approach in this regard.

http://romisatriawahono.net/lecture/rm/survey/network%20security/Toosi%20-%20Interconnected%20Cloud%20Computing%20Environments%20-%202014.pdf

Interconnected Cloud Computing Environments: Challenges, Taxonomy, and Survey

Trust management is one of the most challenging issues in the emerging cloud computing area. Over the past few years, many studies have proposed different techniques to address trust management issues. However, despite these past efforts, several trust management issues such as identification, privacy, personalization, integration, security, and scalability have been mostly neglected and need to be addressed before cloud computing can be fully embraced. In this article, we present an overview of the cloud service models and we survey the main techniques and research prototypes that efficiently support trust management of services in cloud environments. We present a generic analytical framework that assesses existing trust management research prototypes in cloud computing and relevant areas using a set of assessment criteria. Open research issues for trust management in cloud environments are also discussed.

https://cs.adelaide.edu.au/~qsheng/papers/csur-2013.pdf

Trust management of services in cloud environments: Obstacles and solutions

A number of detection and defense mechanisms have emerged in the last decade to tackle the botnet phenomenon. It is important to organize this knowledge to better understand the botnet problem and its solution space. In this paper, we structure existing botnet literature into three comprehensive taxonomies of botnet behavioral features, detection and defenses. This elevated view highlights opportunities for network defense by revealing shortcomings in existing approaches. We introduce the notion of a dimension to denote different criteria which can be used to classify botnet detection techniques. We demonstrate that classification by dimensions is particularly useful for evaluating botnet detection mechanisms through various metrics of interest. We also show how botnet behavioral features from the first taxonomy affect the accuracy of the detection approaches in the second taxonomy. This information can be used to devise integrated detection strategies by combining complementary approaches. To provide real-world context, we liberally augment our discussions with relevant examples from security research and products.

A Taxonomy of Botnet Behavior, Detection, and Defense

The Compute Power Market (CPM) is a market-based resource management and job scheduling system for grid computing on Internet-wide computational resources, particularly low-end personal computing devices. It transforms the metacomputing environment into a computational market, wherein one can solve problems by renting computational power, storage, and special services from idle resources (computers). The CPM primarily comprises markets, resource consumers, resource providers and their interactions. It supports various economic models (commodity market model, contract-net/tendering, and auction) for resource pricing and mapping between service consumers and providers. The paper proposes a decentralized computation market with multiple markets and numerous consumers and providers spread across the grid environment. The paper further discusses the basic architecture and the components involved in markets, consumers and providers, namely: a Market Server, a Market Resource Agent, a Market Resource Broker and Market Trader and scheduler used for negotiation and job deployment.

Compute Power Market: towards a market-oriented grid

Process mining automatically produces a process model while considering only an organization’s records of its operational processes. Over the last decade, many process discovery techniques have been developed, and many authors have compared these techniques by focusing on the properties of the models produced. However, none of the current techniques guarantee to produce sound (i.e., syntactically correct) process models. Furthermore, none of the current techniques provide insights into the trade-offs between the different quality dimensions of process models. In this thesis we present the Evolutionary Tree Miner (ETM) framework. Its main feature is the guarantee that the discovered process models are sound. Another feature is that the ETM framework also incorporates all four well-known quality dimensions in process discovery (replay fitness, precision, generalization and simplicity). Additional quality metrics can be easily added to the Evolutionary Tree Miner. The Evolutionary Tree Miner framework is able to balance these different quality metrics and is able to produce (a collection of) process models that have a specific balance of these quality dimensions, as specified by the user. The third main feature of the Evolutionary Tree Miner is that it is easily extensible. In this thesis we discuss extensions for the discovery of a collection of process models with different quality trade-offs, the discovery of (a collection of) process models using a given process model, and the discovery of a configurable process model that describes multiple event-logs. The Evolutionary Tree Miner is implemented as a plug-in for the process mining toolkit ProM. The Evolutionary Tree Miner and all of its extensions are evaluated using both artificial and real-life data sets.

/pdf/flexible-evolutionary-algorithms-for-mining-structured-4ytbty18w4.pdf

Flexible evolutionary algorithms for mining structured process models

Large scale, distributed, digital environments offer vast potential. Within these environments, software systems will provide unprecedented support for daily life. Offering access to vast amounts of knowledge and resources, these systems will enable wider participation of society, at large. An example is the Smart Energy Grid that increases sustainability and decreases reliance on fossil fuels. Such systems require technology that is capable of negotiating Service Level Agreements (SLAs) between consumers and providers. Multi Agent Systems (MAS) is one such technology that offers a straightforward analog for complex systems of autonomous parties. MAS is based on the notion of autonomous agents that represent human actors (i.e. owners) and are capable of negotiating SLAs and coordinating processes with other agents. They know their owner’s preferences and needs. They are capable of negotiating price, Quality of Service (QoS) characteristics and penalties. They also monitor provisioning of services to detect and penalize service violations. This dissertation presents a MAS framework for automated negotiation and monitoring of SLAs in open environments. In this context, an open environment is a large-scale, distributed environment that is also dynamic and untrusted. This framework enables secure discovery, negotiation and access to distributed resources. Through a process of exchanging messages (e.g. offers, counter-offers), agents together search for a mutually acceptable agreement (e.g. service, price, quality). A negotiation protocol defines the negotiation objects (i.e. offers), language and rules governing interaction. This dissertation presents the WS-Agreement Negotiation protocol with extensions for open environments. This protocol is experimentally validated in the AgentScape middleware. Open environments also present challenges regarding security, trust and privacy. No single authority has complete control over an open environment and no single authority governs the actions of all participants (i.e. agents). Therefore, additional mechanisms are required to ensure security, privacy and promote trust between participants. Automated monitoring mechanisms using a Trusted Third Party (TTP) address issues of security and thus support negotiation in open environments. This dissertation presents a self-adaptive monitoring approach that (1) offers monitoring assurance that agreements are honored, (2) builds a secure audit log of agreement compliance, (3) performs measurements while safeguarding privacy of (sensitive) data, (4) dynamically reacts to changes in risk and (5) enables trust-building between consumers and providers. This monitoring approach is experimentally validated in the AgentScape middleware. Automation of complex tasks, such as negotiation, can increase efficiency. To illustrate these benefits, the framework is applied to two complex systems, including the Smart Energy Grid. In this case, the looming complexity crisis of intermittent generation, real-time pricing and consumer demand shifting requires immediate attention. This domain presents not only technical (e.g. smart-meters) but also social challenges (e.g. user acceptance). The MAS automation framework presented in this dissertation addresses technical challenges by reducing manual labor and increasing efficiency. Automation even enables higher utilization of green resources and reduction of waste (e.g. produced, but unconsumed energy). Transparent, trusted monitoring mechanisms address social challenges by ensuring privacy of (sensitive) data and encouraging user acceptance. Software systems, such as those presented in this dissertation, enable wider participation of society, at large, and offer vast potential.

Negotiation and Monitoring in Open Environments

The Web Services Agreement specification defines a normative language to formulate Service Level Agreements and a basic protocol to expose service-level descriptions, validate service-level requests, and come to an agreement. This protocol, often called “take-it-or-leave-it”, allows a service provider and a service consumer to decide whether to accept or reject a service offer. Although this approach is sufficient for a number of use cases, others exist with requirements for multi-step negotiation or the adaptation of an existing agreement. In this paper, we describe the Web Services Agreement Negotiation protocol, a proposal by the Open Grid Forum to extend the existing specification. This proposal is the result of combining various research activities that have been conducted to define protocols for negotiating service levels or to supersede the existing “take-it-or-leave-it” protocol. The main characteristics of this proposal are the multi-round negotiation capability, renegotiation capability, and compliance with the original specification.

A proposal for WS-Agreement Negotiation

BOTCLOUDS - The Future of Cloud-based Botnets?

Service Level Agreements (SLA) are commonly used to define terms and conditions of service provisioning. WS-Agreement1 is an SLA specification that addresses the need of both producers and consumers of services to specify and negotiate terms and conditions of access to these services. This specification has gained wide acceptance in both the Grid computing and Web Services communities. WS-Agreement includes support for both negotiating and specifying penalties that arise from violation of these terms and conditions. It does not, however, include support for monitoring these agreements to determine if any such violations have occurred and, if so, determining which parties are responsible.This paper proposes a framework and design for secure and reliable monitoring of WS-Agreement specified SLAs. Modifications to WS-Agreement are necessary for effective monitoring. These modifications are outlined, along with an implementation of the framework in the AgentScape middle- ware system.

/pdf/secure-monitoring-of-service-level-agreements-2g5eafhcuk.pdf

Secure Monitoring of Service Level Agreements

Service level agreements (SLAs) provide a means to define specific Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees between providers and consumers of services. Negotiation and definition of these QoS characteristics is an area of significant research. However, defining the actions that take place when an agreement is violated is a topic of more recent focus. This paper discusses recent advances in this field and propose some additional features that can help both consumers and producers during the enactment of services. These features include the ability to (re)negotiate penalties in an agreement, and specifically focuses on the renegotiation of penalties during enactment to reflect ongoing violations.

/pdf/negotiation-and-monitoring-of-service-level-agreements-4pk3c3iuhu.pdf

Kassidy P. Clark

Papers

Negotiation and Monitoring in Open Environments

A proposal for WS-Agreement Negotiation

BOTCLOUDS - The Future of Cloud-based Botnets?

Secure Monitoring of Service Level Agreements

Negotiation and monitoring of service level agreements