Towards a Comprehensive Purchasing Model for Cloud Services

Abstract

The Cloud Service Market has evolved into a complex landscape that challenges the decision making of users as they develop their purchasing process. In particular, we explore the case of cloud infrastructure (IaaS) providers as an example of heterogeneous variety of purchasing options and discounts; this variability represents an important drawback during the decision making process where there is a need to compare and select the best option. In this work, we define a common model to describe purchasing models from different providers taking into account such heterogeneity. This purchasing model represents a first step towards the automated support of decision making problems during the purchasing process. In order to illustrate our approach we apply the model in a real case study of IaaS purchasing.