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ReSA: Architecture for Resources Sharing Between Clouds

Conference Paper · June 2014

DOI: 10.1109/CIACS.2014.6861326

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 2014 Conference on Information Assurance and Cyber Security (CIACS)
ReSA: Architecture for Resources Sharing Between
Clouds
1
Ahmad Waqas, 2Zulkefli Muhammed Yusof, 3Asadullah Shah, 4Mohammad Asif Khan
1,2,3
Department of Computer Science, Kulliyah of Information and Communication Technology
International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
4
Department of Computer Science, Sukkur Institute of Business Administration, Sukkur, Pakistan
1, 4
{ahmad.waqas,asif.khan}@iba-suk.edu.pk, 2, 3{zulmy,asadullah}@iium.edu.my
Abstract— Cloud computing has emerged as paradigm for
hosting and delivering services over the Internet. It is evolved as
a key computing platform for delivering on-demand resources
that include infrastructures, software, applications, and business
processes. Mostly, clouds are deployed in a way that they are
often isolated from each other. These implementations cause
lacking of resources collaboration between different clouds. For
example, cloud consumer requests some resource and that is not
available at that point in time. Client satisfaction is important for
business as denying the client may be expensive in many ways. To
fulfill the client request, the cloud may ask the requested
resource from some other cloud. In this research paper we aim to
propose a trust worthy architecture named ReSA (Resource
Sharing Architecture) for sharing on-demand resources between
different clouds that may be managed under same or different
rules, policies and management.
Keywords— cloud computing; cloud architecture; resource
management; resource collaboration; federated clouds
I. INTRODUCTION
Cloud computing is an attractive business for the
companies and organizations that own large data centers to
rent their resources. During the last decade, cloud computing
evolved promptly and captured the current business market.
Multibillion dollar organizations such as IBM, Amazon,
Google and EBay have hugely capitalized in cloud technology
with the hype of cloud computing. Surveys show that
enterprises and critical business organizations are moving
from public to private cloud. More than 50% of the
Fortune500 enterprises are using some form of the cloud
computing and its growth ratio is 30% per year [1].
Technology Business Research (TBR) recently claimed that
revenue generated by private and professional cloud services
is projected to Grow to $66 Billion by 2018. They further
estimated that the public cloud market to be $110 billion by
2018 [2].
“Cloud Computing is a model for enabling ubiquitous,
convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of
configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers,
storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly
provisioned and released with minimal management efforts or
service provider interaction”. In accordance with the definition
of Cloud computing stated by National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST), cloud computing provides the five
23
978-1-4799-5852-8/14/$31.00 ©2014 IEEE
fundamental features that include on-demand self-service,
broad network access, resource pooling, rapid elasticity and
measured service [3]. The supreme objective is to deliver
computational services when demanded with assurance of
scalability, availability and reliability.
II. RESOURCES OFFERED BY CLOUD
Cloud offers variety of resources to its consumers that
include computational resources, software resources, low-level
hardware, and storage resources and last but not least,
communication resources. Cloud offers its resources as
services that may be Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platform-
as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) [4]
and is called SPI services model. The SaaS model offers the
clients with usage of on-demand software that may include the
business, education and personal applications. There is no
need of managing infrastructure and platform by the cloud
client on which the application is running, thus it simplifies
the support and maintenance. Google Apps, Microsoft Office
365, and Onlive are few examples of SaaS. In PaaS, the client
is offered with a runtime environment for designing,
deploying and testing of application. The Cloud Service
Providers (CSPs) typically facilitate the cloud customers with
a computing platform that usually include system software and
programing run-time environment [5]. Windows Azure
Compute, Amazon Elastic Beanstalk, EngineYard, Cloud
Foundry, Force.com, Mendix, Google App Engine, Heroku
and OrangeScape are a few examples of PaaS. The basic level
of cloud service model is IaaS, where consumers are provided
with the virtualized computer components and resources to
build and run their applications without purchasing the actual
expensive computing components. Windows Azure, Virtual
Machines, Amazon CloudFormation and underlying services
such as Amazon EC2, Google Compute Engine and
Rackspace Cloud are examples of IaaS. Fig. 1 depicts the
services available to cloud consumers.
The cloud services may be deployed in four models that
are Pubic, Private, Community and Hybrid. The Public Cloud
deployment model enables the availability of resources for
public or for the huge number of organizations through the
internet only. Anyone can use the public cloud resources and
infrastructure provided by the Cloud Service Provider (CSP).
Public CSPs are few, for example, Google and Microsoft etc.
as it requires capital investment. CSPs may allow the resource
usage free of cost or may charge the public cloud client on the
basis of pay-per-usage policy. The Private Cloud is
exclusively managed for a solitary company, business or
corporation. Whereas, the Community Cloud model enables
the infrastructure and resources to be shared among two or
more organizations forming a community that have shared
interests including mission, security, compliances. The Private
and Community cloud infrastructure and resources either exist
within the organization or somewhere out of the premises that
may be managed internally by the cloud owners or by the
third-party. The hybrid cloud is formed by combining two or
more clouds (public, private, community) that linger the
distinctive clouds and obligated organized by proprietary or
standardized technologies that supports applications and data
movability and manageability.
Fig. 1. Resources offered to cloud consumers [6]
III. LITERATURE REVIEW
Efficient resources management, evaluation and allocation
is one of vital and complex task in cloud computing. Many
techniques have been proposed and implemented for
managing resources within cloud computing environment.
R. Buyya et al. [7] presented the vision, challenges, and
architectural elements of resource management based on
Service Level Agreement (SLA). Their proposed architecture
provides the support to incorporate policies related to market
based provisioning and virtualization technologies. This
enables the flexible allocation of resources to applications.
J. Espadas et al. [8] proposed a tenant based resource
allocation model. This tenant based resource allocation
enables the deployment of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
applications over cloud computing platforms by taking into
account their multi-tenancy. This is to provide a cost-effective
scalable environment. This is done by consideration of the
formal measurements of under and over provisioning of
virtualized resources in cloud infrastructures, specifically for
SaaS platform.
24
C. Huang et al [9] proposed a sub-optimal resource
allocation mechanism in a cloud computing environment.
They introduced the use of support vector regressions (SVRs)
for assessing the number of resource consumption in line with
the Service Level Agreement (SLA) of every process. After
predicting recourse utilization, the resources will be then
reallocated based on the recent status of all virtual machines.
They further presented the formal procedure for dispatching
resources with the help of genetic algorithms (GAs) to
determine the redistribution of resources.
Y.B. Ma [10] proposed a job allocation algorithm for cloud
computing environment based on ontology. The aim of
proposed algorithm is to accomplish inferences on the basis of
semantic meanings. They extracted resource candidates
according to user requirements and allocate the job to the most
appropriate candidate based on agreed Service Level
Agreement (SLA).
Andrew J. Younge et al. [11] presented a Green Cloud
Framework that facilitates with proficient green improvements
within a scalable cloud computing architecture. This is
empowered with the usage and integration of power-aware
scheduling techniques, variable resource management, live
migration, and a minimal virtual machine design. They
proposed the power based scheduling for virtual machines to
schedule and allocate resources effectively and efficiently.
Although, many techniques and methods have been
proposed and research is undergoing for efficient resources
management, utilization and allocation but this only focuses
the resource management and allocation within the single
cloud and between cloud client and cloud service provider.
Resource sharing between multiple clouds has not been
focused yet. To fulfill the demand of client, a cloud can ask or
borrow resource from some other clouds if it does not have
available resource at that point in time. This has been seen in
federated clouds that are under single rules, policies,
management and authority but for clouds with different
ownership, rules, policies and management has not been
focused. In proceeding section, we investigated and proposed
cloud architecture ReSA for resource sharing between
different clouds.
IV. STATE-OF-THE-ART CLOUD COMPUTING ARCHITECTURE
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
presented a Cloud Computing Reference Architecture and
Taxonomy [6][12] to provide a framework for accurate
communication of the components and offerings of cloud
computing. It aims to develop a universal vendor neutral
architecture that is reliable to NIST cloud computing
definition and to obtain a solution that does not choke
innovation by expressing a specified technical solution. There
are five components in this model i.e. cloud provider, cloud
consumer, cloud broker, cloud carrier and cloud auditor.
Cloud providers offer cloud services (SaaS, PaaS, Iaas) having
the cloud infrastructure (physical resources) along with service
management procedures and ensure security and privacy at
every layer of service. Cloud consumer consumes cloud
services according to Service Level Agreement (SLA) offered
by cloud provider either directly or through a third-party
named as cloud broker. Cloud Auditor performs security, for each entity that includes objects, clients and services. CSM
privacy and performance auditing of cloud to ensure the itself is a fault tolerant distributed system for serving clients
quality of services. Cloud carrier is the medium between cloud with requested services.
provider, cloud broker, cloud consumer and cloud auditor.

V. RESA: RESOURCE SHARING ARCHITECTURE – SHARING

RESOURCES BETWEEN CLOUDS
We propose a Resource Sharing Architecture (ReSA), a
trustworthy architecture for clouds to connect and collaborate
with other clouds that may be under same rules, policies,
ownership and management. Different clouds can connect
with each other by agreeing upon the Service Level
Agreement (SLA) and signing the mutual contract to share
resources with each other when requested. We suppose this
agreement between clouds as a manual process at this time.
We will extend this agreement process to be dynamic later.
Fig. 2 depicts the top-level view of cloud computing
implementation. It contains the cloud client who wants to
access the cloud services and resources that may be SaaS, IaaS
or PaaS. Cloud Services Manager (CSM) is responsible to
obtain the authentication and authorization of client as the Fig. 2. Top-level view of cloud implementation
client is directly connected with CSM only, and CSM is the
single point of entry. The Cloud Manager (CM) is a distributed and fault tolerant
system that is responsible for connecting and communicating
CSM will allocate and delegate the requested services to
the client after authentication and authorization process with other (foreign) clouds for resource collaboration. CM will
according to service level agreement (SLA). A log file for all have full read-only access on the log file maintained by the
events (both sucessful and failed) will be maintained by CSM CSM to monitor the entities and services. Table 1 summarizes

Fig. 3. Architecture for sharing resources between clouds

25
the architectural components of Resource Sharing through a secure channel for communication to avoid any
Architecture (ReSA). security breach. Fig. 3 depicts that how the CMs of different
clouds are connected with each other under predefined rules
TABLE I. RESA ARCHITECTURAL COMPONENTS
and policies to form a network.
Key Table has to be maintained by all CMs that gives the
Component Functions and Purpose
full view of the CMs network. At present, we assume that the
Cloud Client • Any entity including users, objects and other management of these key tables is static as the agreement
federated cloud who want to connect with process between clouds is also supposed to be manual at this
cloud for services usage.
time for experiments. Later, we will extend these key tables to
• Utilizes cloud services through secure web
be dynamic with the process of dynamic agreement between
connections only.
clouds.
Cloud • Services offered by the cloud that includes
Services SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. The key table contains the information of the CMs of other
Cloud Service • An important distributed fault tolerant clouds. Fig. 4 gives an example of key tables maintained for
Manager component and single point of entry for all above scenario (Fig.3). Key table maintained by the CM of
(CSM) cloud clients except foreign cloud because cloud A will have the necessary information of cloud B, C and
foreign clouds are only connected with CM. D (Fig. 4, Table II) as these are the connected clouds under
• Client can only connect to cloud through agreed rules and policies. Similarly, CMs of cloud B, C and D
CSM and can never bypass it as it is the only also maintained the key tables with information shown in table
point of entry. III, IV and V respectively.
• Responsible to maintain the log files for each
and every action of client and services.
• Responsible to attend client’s request and TABLE II. KEY TABLE OF CM AT CLOUD A
validation of client by authentication and CloudID IP MAC SLA
authorization process. Cd_B 10.10.10.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-58 3
• Requests CM to borrow requested resource Cd_C 192.168.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-59 1
by client from other clouds if it is not Cd_D 172.152.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-60 2
available to fulfill the client’s requirement.
• Responsible to delegate requested services to TABLE III. KEY TABLE OF CM AT CLOUD B
client according to SLA.
• Coordinate with CM to collaborate with CloudID IP MAC SLA
foreign clouds to share services. Cd_A 11.1.1.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-61 1
• Responsible to compute resources and Cd_C 192.168.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-59 1
provision of resources to foreign clouds Cd_D 172.152.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-60 2
according to SLAs.
TABLE IV. KEY TABLE OF CM AT CLOUD C
Cloud • An important distributed fault tolerant
Manager component and single point of entry for CloudID IP MAC SLA
(CM) foreign cloud only. Cd_A 11.1.1.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-61 1
• Responsible to coordinate with CSM for log Cd_B 10.10.10.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-58 2
maintenance. Cd_D 172.152.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-60 2
• Responsible to maintain Key Table that
contains the entries of other connected TABLE V. KEY TABLE OF CM AT CLOUD D
clouds.
• Responsible to monitor and sense the overall CloudID IP MAC SLA
performance and cloud services request from Cd_A 11.1.1.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-61 1
its CSM and from other clouds. Cd_B 10.10.10.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-58 2
• Responsible to send borrow message to all Cd_C 192.168.0.1 74-E5-0B-51-4E-59 1
clouds listed in Key Table to borrow the
required resource.
• Responsible to overhear resource request Fig. 4. Key Tables
messages from other clouds and inform CSM
urgently. CM will have full read-only access on the log file
• Maintains queue to decide about choices of maintained by the CSM to monitor the entities and services.
resource offered by other clouds because it For Example, some resource X is requested by consumer of
will request for resource to all connected cloud A, the CSM will evaluate the resources and if that is
clouds and will get responses from them. available it will delegate the requested resource to the
• Responsible to delegating other cloud’s consumer based on Service Level Agreement (SLA). If the
requests for sharing services to CSM. resource is not available, it can request the resource to the
connected clouds to fulfill the consumer’s request. As the
foreign clouds are only connected through CM, the CSM will
The CM is connected with CSM of its cloud and the CMs place a request message to CM of its cloud A to ask and
of other clouds only. CMs are supposed to be connected borrow that resource from foreign connected clouds.

26
 Fig. 5. Resource Sharing Processes between Clouds
The CM of cloud A will broadcast a resource request
message to all connected clouds for example clouds B, C and
D. The information of connected clouds is already maintained
in the key table. On receiving end, the CM of clouds B, C and
D will forward the request message to their CSM. The CSM
will evaluate its resources upon receiving request and will
intimate its CM if resource is available. The CM of clouds B,
C and D will then reply to the cloud A if the resource is
available. It is possible that none of the cloud has the resource
available or all of them have resource available. A queue will
be maintained at CM of cloud A to receive the responses from
other clouds. Suppose cloud D responses first that the resource
is available than cloud B and cloud C does not responded
because of resource unavailability. It will be decided to
receive services from cloud D by the CM of cloud A as it is at
front of queue.
CM of cloud A will then send a message including its ID,
IP, MAC and secret code to cloud D about the confirmation
for availing resource. The CM of cloud D will forward the
information to its CSM who will then get the authentication
and authorization of cloud A based on SLA and will allocate
the resource to cloud A that will be allocated to the cloud
consumer. The consumer of cloud A will be using resources
from cloud D in a transparent manner. Fig. 5 depicts the
processes of resource request from client to cloud, from one
27
cloud to other clouds and delivery of that resource back to the
client.
VI. CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
In this paper we have proposed ReSA, a trust worthy cloud
computing architecture, for resources sharing and
collaboration between different clouds. This architecture is
good to share resources between clouds that may be under
different management, ownership and policies. The aim of
cloud computing is to facilitate with on-demand resources.
The problem may arise that cloud does not have available
resource at that point in time when it is requested by cloud
client. In such case, cloud can ask or borrow the requested
resource to its connected clouds rather than refusing the client.
This will be helpful to align the cloud computing objective to
facilitate with on-demand resource availability.
In future, we aim to implement this resource sharing
architecture (ReSA) and to develop algorithms for computing
resources, SLA management between clouds, risk analysis and
resolution of the contention process that inevitably pops up
when a cloud is asked for resources by several other clouds.
We will also extend this architecture for sharing attack related
information between clouds to protect themselves without
involvement of any third party. This will facilitate to improve
the cloud computing security and auditing measures and will
lead towards a self-securing architecture for clouds.
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