Agent-based Cloud service composition

Service composition in multi-Cloud environments

must coordinate self-interested participants, automate

service selection, (re)configure distributed services, and deal

with incomplete information about Cloud providers and

their services. This work proposes an agent-based approach

to compose services in multi-Cloud environments for different

types of Cloud services: one-time virtualized services,

e.g., processing a rendering job, persistent virtualized services,

e.g., infrastructure-as-a-service scenarios, vertical services,

e.g., integrating homogenous services, and horizontal

services, e.g., integrating heterogeneous services. Agents

are endowed with a semi-recursive contract net protocol and

service capability tables (information catalogs about Cloud

participants) to compose services based on consumer requirements.

Empirical results obtained from an agent-based

testbed show that agents in this work can: successfully compose

services to satisfy service requirements, autonomously

select services based on dynamic fees, effectively cope with

constantly changing consumers’ service needs that trigger

updates, and compose services in multiple Clouds even with

incomplete information about Cloud participants.