A Broker-Based Framework for the Recommendation of Cloud Services: A Research Proposal

Finding and comparing appropriate cloud services that best fit cloud service consumer requirements can be a complex, time-consuming and cost-intensive process, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises. Since there is no “one-fits-all” cloud service provider, companies face the challenge of selecting and combining services from different vendors to meet all their requirements. Therefore, this paper calls for the design of a cloud brokering framework that would enable faster and easier selection of cloud services by recommending appropriate services through a matchmaking system. Drawing on previously conducted studies and considering current issues and practical experiences both from provider and user perspectives, we propose a framework that would identify, rank and recommend cloud services from multiple modules and components to individual consumers. Furthermore, we contribute an early-stage design of a cloud broker framework that considers cloud-service consumers’ sourcing preferences while making new cloud-sourcing decisions and that can be used in the selection and adoption phase of implementing cloud services and/or as part of a multicloud strategy.