Derivation of Broker Policies from Cloud Hosting Platform Service Descriptions

Cloud service brokerage leads to creation of ecosystems of highly distributed, task-oriented, modular, and collaborative cloud services managed by a broker. A broker is striving to create optimized cloud service consumption lifecycle in terms of cost, flexibility and business agility. In order to effectively manage the complexity inherent in such ecosystems, enterprises are anticipated to crucially depend upon cloud service brokerage (CSB) mechanisms. This work focuses on the management of hosting platforms participating in the ecosystem of a cloud service brokerage platform. The hosting platforms are as any other actor of a cloud service brokerage ecosystem evolving over time. The hosting platforms may join or leave the ecosystem, add or remove hosting services to the ecosystem or change characteristics of the available hosting services. The broker is thereby confronted with the issue of keeping its business policy offered to the service providers and service consumers up to date concerning the hosting alternatives in the ecosystem. We present a strategy for derivation of business policies from service descriptions of hosting services. The strategy is showcased in Linked USDL - our chosen technical specification for enabling platform-agnostic data exchanges.