ESaaSA 2015 Abstracts

Full Papers Short Papers
Full Papers
Paper Nr: 1
Title:

Quality of Service for Financial Modeling and Prediction as a Service
Authors:

Victor Chang and Muthu Ramachandran
Abstract: This paper describes our proposal for Quality of Service (QoS) for Financial Modeling and Prediction as a Service (FMPaaS), since a majority of papers does not focus on SaaS level. We focus on two factors for delivering successful QoS, which are performance and accuracy for FMPaaS. The design process, theories and models behind the FMPaaS service have been explained. To support our FMPaaS service, two APIs have been developed to improve on performance and accuracy. Two major experiments have been illustrated and results show that each API processing can be completed in 2.12 seconds and 100,000 simulations can be completed in an acceptable period of time. Accuracy tests have been performed while using Facebook as an example. Three points of comparisons between actual and predicted prices have been undertaken. Results support accuracy since results are between 93.72% and 99.63%.
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Paper Nr: 4
Title:

Scalable QoE Prediction for Service Composition
Authors:

Natalia Kushik and Nina Yevtushenko
Abstract: In this paper, we present an approach for scalable QoE estimation/prediction of a composition of given services. The approach relies on using logic circuits/networks for the QoE prediction. Given two logic circuits that predict the QoE values of two service components, we propose a method for synthesizing the resulting logic circuit that predicts the QoE of the overall service composition. As the complexity of this resulting circuit significantly depends on the complexity of an implementation of a MIN function, we present an experimental evaluation of the complexity of the corresponding circuit.
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Paper Nr: 6
Title:

Towards an Opportunistic, Socially-driven, Self-organizing, Cloud Networking Architecture with NovaGenesis
Authors:

Antonio M. Alberti, Waldir Moreira, Rodrigo da Rosa Righi, Francisco J. Pereira Neto, Ciprian Dobre and Dhananjay Singh
Abstract: The exponential growth on the number of mobile devices and their capabilities are leveraging new possibilities of networking architectures for processing, storing, and exchanging of information. At a glance, existing architectures take advantage of these devices, the social behavior of their users, and/or the dynamicity on resource usage. Despite of the potential of existing initiatives, they do not interoperate which reduce their applications and deployment. As we walk towards a very dynamic world (regarding the user needs and characteristics, the information traversing the network, and the networking capability to adaptation at both users features and content of the demands levels), these architectures should merge into a solution that fits any type of scenario. In this paper, we specify an opportunistic, socially-driven, self-organizing, cloud networking architecture using a future Internet proposal named NovaGenesis. We highlight the requirements and solutions that NovaGenesis brings to accommodate the inherent challenges of today’s dynamic networking scenario. Thus, we describe a convergent architecture, which integrates the new requirements with the already implemented NovaGenesis features.
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Paper Nr: 13
Title:

Simulation as a Service - A Case Study of Provisioning Scientific Simulation Software via a Cloud Service
Authors:

Morgan Eldred, Alice Good and Carl Adams
Abstract: This paper reports on a case study that was conducted on a large scale cloud service project that moved scientific simulation software to the cloud, one that used sensitive data. The study aimed to explore the challenges and practicalities of initiating and evaluating simulation as a cloud service. Action research was used to examine the nuances throughout the project as the service was moved from on-premise into a public cloud, lasting over one year from start to finish. The study was able to identify some emergent issues affecting initiation, technical security challenges and the evaluation of a significant change in a critical applications provisioning model.
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Paper Nr: 14
Title:

Disaggregated Architecture for at Scale Computing
Authors:

Chung-Sheng Li, Hubertus Franke, Colin Parris and Victor Chang
Abstract: The rapid growth of cloud computing both in terms of the spectrum and volume of cloud workloads brought many challenges to the traditional data center design - fast changing system configuration requirements due to workload constraints, varying innovation cycles of system components, and maximal sharing of systems and subsystems. In this paper, we developed a qualitative assessment of the opportunites and challenges for leveraging disaggregated datacenter architecture to address these challenges. In particular, we compare and contrast the programming models that can be used to access the disaggregated resources, and developed the implications for the network and resource provisioning and management.
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Short Papers
Paper Nr: 3
Title:

On-demand Text Analytics and Metadata Management with S4
Authors:

Marin Dimitrov, Alex Simov and Yavor Petkov
Abstract: Semantic technologies provide a new, promising approach for smart data management and analytics. At the same time, the adoption of an emerging technology is usually limited by factors such as its perceived complexity, cost and performance. Startups and mid-size businesses often have very limited resources to evaluate and prototype with emerging technologies, even if their potential for more efficient data management and analytics is significant. The Self-Service Semantic Suite (S4) provides an integrated platform for cloud-based text analytics and Linked Data management as-a-service, so that companies in the early stage of evaluating and adopting semantic technologies can easily access a full suite of semantic data management and text analytics capabilities for smart data analytics in various domains.
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Paper Nr: 5
Title:

Evaluation Metrics for VM Allocation Mechanisms in Desktop Clouds
Authors:

Abdulelah Alwabel, Robert Walters and Gary Wills
Abstract: Desktop Cloud computing is the idea of benefiting from computing resources around us to build a Cloud system in order to have better usage of these resources instead of them being idle. However, such resources are prone to failure at any given time without prior knowledge. Such failure events have a can negative impact on the outcome of a Desktop Cloud system. This paper proposes metrics that can evaluate the behaviour of Virtual Machine (VM) allocation mechanisms in the presence of node failures. The metrics are throughput, power consumption and availability. Three VM allocation mechanisms (Greedy, FCFS and RoundRobin mechanisms) are evaluated using the given metrics.
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Paper Nr: 7
Title:

Factors Influencing the Implementation of a Private Government Cloud in Saudi Arabia
Authors:

Amal Alkhlewi, Robert Walters and Gary Wills
Abstract: The government of Saudi Arabia is in the process of moving to e-government. This transition is hindered by the weakness of ICT infrastructure within Saudi government agencies. The development of a private government cloud is a solution for rapidly improving this infrastructure. An exploratory study is conducted to identify the factors that affect the implementation of such a private government cloud. An expert review has confirmed the ten factors suggested from an initial literature review and identified five additional factors.
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Paper Nr: 8
Title:

The Improved Cloud Computing Adoption Framework to Deliver Secure Services
Authors:

Muthu Ramachandran, Victor Chang and Chung-Sheng Li
Abstract: This paper describes a high-level approach for our improved Cloud Computing Adoption Framework update 1 (CCAF 1.1), which emphasizes on the security policies, recommendations, techniques and technologies to be updated in our framework. Motivation, background, security overview and recent attack methods have been discussed. We propose a solution based on arising needs to improve current Cloud security, Fine Grained Security Model (FGSM) which is designed to integrate three different types of security methods and offer multi-layered security for a better data protection. Technologies and techniques behind FGSM have been explained and will be useful for our CCAF 1.1 development.
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Paper Nr: 9
Title:

Towards an Integrated Conceptual Model for Cloud Adoption in Saudi Arabia
Authors:

Nouf Alkhater, Victor Chang, Gary Wills and Robert Walters
Abstract: There are several advantages of utilising cloud computing in organisations such as cost saving and flexibility in acquiring resources. The use of cloud computing in developing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, is still in its early stages and has not been as widely adopted there as in developed countries. In fact, moving a current system to the cloud depends on many factors that may affect a Saudi Arabian organisation's decision to adopt the cloud. In order to encourage the adoption of cloud technology it is essential to understand why some enterprises are more prepared than others to move to the cloud. Hence, the aim of this research is to examine factors that might impact on a Saudi Arabian organisation's intention to adopt cloud computing. In this paper, we propose a conceptual model which integrates aspects of the Technology Organisation Environment (TOE) framework. The proposed model identifies the key factors that might influence organisations to employ cloud services. Our findings show that all the proposed factors in the cloud adoption model, except for competitive pressure and trading partner pressure, are statically significant.
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Paper Nr: 10
Title:

Migration of Cloud Services and Deliveries to Higher Education
Authors:

Raed Alsufyani, Fash Safdari and Victor Chang
Abstract: This paper discusses the adoption of cloud computing in education. It emphasizes the view that cloud computing is vital in the education sector because of its ability to reduce the overall costs of IT infrastructure installation and maintenance, improvement of efficiency, and the sharing of IT resources among students. The flexibility of cloud computing and its reliability makes it more appropriate for use in the educational environment. The Leeds Beckett University cloud project utilizes the SAS Educational Value-Added Assessment System, which gives lecturers the opportunity to deliver accurate content to students while monitoring their progress. Contemporary educational institutions must look forward to improve their research and education through cloud computing.
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Paper Nr: 11
Title:

Design of Smart Business-oriented Mining Engine
Authors:

Neil Y. Yen and Jason C. Hung
Abstract: Keys to successful implementation of smart business require a wide spectrum of domain knowledge, experts, and their correlated experiences. Excluding those external factors – which can be collected by well-deployed sensors – being aware of user (or consumer) has the highest priority on the to-do-list. The more user is understood, the more user can be satisfied from an intuitive point of view, and thus, data plays a rather essential role in the scenario. However, it is never easy to achieve comprehensive understanding as the data requires further processing before its values can be extracted and used. So how the data can be properly transformed into something useful for smart business development is exactly what we pursue in this study. As a pioneer, three major tasks are focused. First, a mining engine is developed to be responsible for the universal collection of data which is primarily from real world, cyber world, and social world. Second, we go further into the fusion process of the collected data (e.g., the consumer purchase data shared by real-world company). A three-layer analysis and mining procedure is designed to enhance the mining engine through conventional RFM (Regency, Frequency, and Monetary Value) model and a set of fusion techniques. And in the end, we make planning-based predictions for a real-world company for expansion of the business interests.
Paper Nr: 12
Title:

An Overview of Cloud Services Adoption Challenges in Higher Education Institutions
Authors:

Abdulrahman Alharthi, Fara Yahya, Robert J Walters and Gary B Wills
Abstract: Information Technology (IT) plays an important role in enabling education services be delivered to users. Most education online services in universities have been run on the cloud to provide services to support students, lecturers, researchers and administration staff. These are enabled with the emergence of cloud computing in the world of IT. Cloud computing offers on demand Internet-based computing services. This paper presents an overview of cloud computing adoption in higher education, mainly tertiary institutions and universities. The focus of the paper is the challenges of cloud computing in higher education. It introduces the background to cloud computing and reviews research on adoption challenges in higher education institutions. These challenges are important as they provide an overview of the adoption of cloud in higher education. The authors proposed an integrated reference model based on the challenges in the literature integrated with TAM model to investigate the factors influence the users’ attitudes and behaviours toward using cloud education services in universities ICT provision.
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