Abstract

Given cloud services growing diffusion in business environments, cloud providers are searching for novel ways to provide effective assurances to cloud consumers. Continuous service certification (CSC) recently emerged as a promising way to address cloud consumers’ assurance needs, which stem from the inherent complexity and dynamics of today’s cloud environments. One CSC approach is to use the monitoring data of a provider’s cloud infrastructure for (semi-)automated certification processes. While a monitoring-based CSC approach has the potential to provide ongoing assurances concerning key properties of a cloud infrastructure (e.g., service availability and security), research to date lacks guidance on how to design and implement monitoring-based CSC. Following the design science paradigm with an exploratory inductive research approach, we contribute to the design knowledge base for CSC by proposing meta-requirements and design principles based on comprehensive interviews with cloud experts, and by offering insights into the development and evaluation of a prototypical artefact in a realistic scenario of a German cloud provider. Continuing our research will provide the design knowledge needed by cloud providers to implement monitoring-based CSC and thus will help address the deficiencies and assurance needs of today’s cloud environments.

Share

COinS