Title: Enhancing applications with cloud services by means of aspects

Authors: Rosario Giunta; Fabrizio Messina; Giuseppe Pappalardo; Emiliano Tramontana

Addresses: Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Catania, Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, Catania I-95125, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Catania, Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, Catania I-95125, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Catania, Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, Catania I-95125, Italy ' Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Università di Catania, Catania, Viale A. Doria 6, Catania I-95125, Italy

Abstract: In order to use remote cloud-based services, existing legacy applications need to be adapted, hence partially rewritten to include calls to such services and take decisions on the basis of the dynamic state of these services. This knowledge on cloud services makes applications run smoothly, however it also makes applications more complex. In this paper we propose a general software architecture, making use of aspect-orientation, that allows storage-related code within applications to be redefined in order to integrate applications with appropriate services available on several clouds. Our provided components allow integration while keeping cloud- and application-related concerns well separated, hence obtaining modularity. Additional components provide applications with enhanced features, such as monitoring the behaviour of cloud resources, connecting with several cloud providers, and generating replicas of most accessed contents. As a result, the availability of contents will be increased, i.e., in a given moment the most unloaded cloud service will be automatically selected and accessed.

Keywords: distributed systems; cloud computing; software architectures; service integration; QoS; quality of service; modularity; AOP; replica; cloud services; aspect orientation; monitoring.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCAT.2015.070490

International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, 2015 Vol.51 No.4, pp.273 - 282

Published online: 08 Jul 2015 *

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