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International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Electronics Engineering
Volume 1, Issue 6, August 2012

“Which cloud service provider should I opt
for???”
A comparative study of the various cloud
service providers along with the focus on
various techniques for optimal service selection.
Lipika Bose

ABSTRACT— In today’s world, Cloud Computing has available to be accessed from the cloud at any time,
generated a lot of interest and competition in the and from any location via the internet. There‟s no
industry. With the emergence of new Cloud Providers, need to worry about how things are being maintained
identifying one that best suits the business needs of an behind the scenes. Customer simply purchases the IT
enterprise is a challenging and difficult task. For to a service they require. Because of this, cloud
novice or user with little knowledge about cloud
computing is also known as utility computing, or „IT
on demand‟.
computing, it is still very hard to make a reasonable
Once you've decided to move to a cloud, the next
choice. What differences are there for different cloud
most important decision is to choose the right cloud
providers and what characteristics and advantages each
computing service provider. Investigating the
has? To answer these problems, the characteristics,
reliability and viability of a cloud provider is one of
services and applications of several popular cloud
the most complex areas faced when managing the
computing providers are analyzed and tabulated. From cloud. The Cloud providers have their own set of
the comparison of these providers, users can better pricing, billing, flexibility, support and other
understand and more reasonably choose what they important parameters in their model of computing the
want. The main aim of this paper is to focus on the service.
various techniques for decision making process of There are various other methods for evaluating the
optimal service selection and to provide a brief best suitable service provider. Some of them are
comparative analysis of various cloud services. The Quality of Service Attributes like Reputation,
paper begins with a glimpse of cloud computing. The Throughput, Availability, Response Time etc. Some
next section focuses on the various techniques for other factors are Maximum gain and Minimal cost for
optimal service selection. The third section presents a optimal service, Analytic Hierarchy Process and
table of comparison of some renowned cloud service many others.
providers. The last section finally summarizes the whole
paper.

II. OPTIMAL SERVICE SELECTION
I. INTRODUCTION
There are various techniques for optimal service
Cloud Computing describes highly scalable selection. Few of them are listed below.
computing resources which are provided as an
external service via the internet on a pay-as-you-go
basis. The main highlighted point of cloud computing
is that customers only use what they need, and only
pay for what they actually use. Resources are

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A. Quality of Service Attributes: C. CloudCmp:

In order to carry out reasonable adaptations, the CloudCmp is a framework that helps a potential
fulfillment of QoS requirements has to be monitored cloud customer to estimate the performance and costs
and future potential QoS values have to be predicted. of running a legacy application on a cloud without
Based on these values, the best suitable adaptation actually deploying the application.
can be selected to counter potential QoS threats. It consists of a set of benchmarking tools that are
There are various QOS attributes that should be used to compare the common services such as elastic
considered during the service selection criteria. Some computing cluster, persistent storage, intra-cloud and
of them are listed below: wide area network) and the benchmarking results are
 Price then used to predict the performance and cost of a
 Response Time cloud user‟s application when deployed on a cloud.
 Throughput The goal of service benchmarking is to generate a
 Availability cloud service‟s performance and costs proﬁle which
 Reliability includes the time to ﬁnish a task and the associated
Higher the above attributes value except price and cost.
Response Time better is the quality. Response Time CloudCmp, a systematic comparator of the
and Price should be low. performance and cost of cloud providers. CloudCmp
measures the elastic computing, persistent storage,
and networking services offered by a cloud along
B. Evaluating the Provider’s Cloud Service metrics that directly reflect their impact on the
Portfolio: performance of customer applications. CloudCmp
strives to ensure fairness, representativeness, and
Service selection decision should be such that it compliance of these measurements while limiting
results in maximum gain and minimal cost. This measurement cost.
strategy benefits the SME. We can look for the
following characteristics of the providers:
 Interoperability: For greatest
interoperability value, look for a provider D. Analytic Hierarchy Process:
that offers a common infrastructure platform
for public and private hosted clouds, as well In Analytic Hierarchy process the problem domain is
as your on-premises private cloud. For decomposed into a hierarchy of criteria and
example: an enterprise can place its alternatives. This process starts with stating the
application in public cloud but at the same objective of the problem then defining the criteria
time its secure database in a private or on- and finally picking up the alternatives. Information is
premise cloud. then arranged into a hierarchical tree. The
 Service Level Agreements: SLA should be information is then synthesized to determine the
read carefully. It is well said that, relative ranking of the alternatives.
Remember, it‟s not about getting the “best” There are several ways to determine the ranking of
SLAs; it‟s about getting the terms that are the alternatives:
most meaningful to you and your business.  Using judgments‟: The judgments‟ of the
 Security: Always look for a provider that concerned people can be considered for the
makes security a priority. Remember when relative ranking of the alternatives.
ever an enterprise enters into a cloud it is  Pair wise Comparisons: Alternatives can be
entrusting its highly secured information to compared pair wise thereby importance of
the third party. Ensure the provider builds one criterion over the other can be
its cloud architecture for optimal protection. expressed. First a pair wise matrix is
 Experience: Always look for a cloud prepared and then we get a ranking of
service provider who has a record in priorities from that.
managing enterprise data centers, providing
secure hosting and delivering other critical
applications.

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Objective

Criteria 1 Criteria 2 Criteria 3

Alternative Alternative Alternative Alternative Alternative

E. Weighted Difference Service Selection: transpose of the user requirement vector which yields
this column vector.
This service selection process involves comparison Each element of this column vector is an assessment
between the user requirement criteria vector and all of conformity of the respective service to the user‟s
service descriptor vectors and then selection of the requirement and the element having the minimum
service which has the corresponding descriptor vector value corresponds to the most appropriate service for
that best matches with the user requirement vector. the user.
The user requirement criteria vector defines a vector
R= [r1, r2, r3… rm] where each rj is the user‟s
(decision maker‟s) minimal requirement against
criteria cj belongs to C.
The service descriptor vector defines a vector D= [d1, III. COMPARISION OF CLOUD PROVIDERS.
d2, d3… dm] where each element dj of D represents
the performance or assessment of service si under This comparison table is based on latest information
criteria cj belongs to C. available on the websites of cloud providers. The
In the first method, which we call Weighted contents are subject to change with time, as and when
Difference (WD), we subtract the user requirement the cloud providers come up with new up gradations
vector form each row of the decision matrix D. In the and features.
next step we calculate the product of this matrix and

Amazon Google App Windows Force.com Rackspace GoGrid
AWS Engine Azure

Cloud Service Compute: Google Secure. Access. Apex Language Cloud Servers. Cloud Servers.
Amazon Elastic Data Connector. Control. Code Editor. Cloud Files. Data Transfer.
Tools Compute Private gadgets. Caching. Enhanced Cloud Sites. Cloud Storage.
Cloud (EC2). Google Service Bus. Metadata Support. CloudLoad Dedicated Servers.
Amazon Elastic Visualization SQLAzure Data Upgrade Wizard. Balancers. Content Delivery Network.
MapReduce. API. Sync. Managed Hardware Firewall.
Auto Scaling. GoogleApps SQLAzure Configurations. Load Balancer.
ElasticLoad APIs . Database Managed Cloud Link.
Balancing. Googleweb SQLAzure Collocation
Content Delivery toolkit Import/Export Servers.
Amazon IDE support. Windows Azure Dedicated
CloudFront. CDN. Servers.
Database Windows Azure Managed
Amazon Platform Customers.
Relational Management Rackspace Email
Database Service Portal. Hosting.

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(RDS). Windows Azure Cloud Drive.
Amazon Service Email Archiving.
DynamoDB. Management..
Amazon Windows Azure
SimpleDB. Product Website.
Amazon SQLAzure
ElastiCache. Reporting.
Deployment &
Management.
AWS Identity and
Access
Management
(IAM).
Amazon
CloudWatch.
AWS Elastic
Beanstalk.
AWS
CloudFormation.
Application
Services
Amazon
CloudSearch.
Amazon Simple
Workflow Service
(SWF).
Amazon Simple
Queue .
Service (SQS).
Amazon Simple
Notification
Service (SNS).
Amazon Simple
Email Service
(SES).
Networking
Amazon Route
53.
Amazon Virtual
Private Cloud
(VPC).

Operating Runtime Operating Software Operating Operating systems
Platforms systems Java Runtime systems Unlimited real- systems Windows server 2008.
supported RedHatLinux, Environment Windows 7 time Linux. Windows server 2003.
Windows Server, Python Runtime Windows Server database Mac OS X. Redhat Linux 5.1.
openSuSE Linux, Environment 2008 customizations. Windows. Redhat Linux 5.4.
Fedora, Features Windows Vista Programmable
Debian, Integration with user interface.
OpenSolaris, Google Accounts Programmable
Cent OS, URL Fetch cloud logic.
Gentoo Linux, Mail Real-time
and Oracle Linux. workflow
and approvals.
Real-time
web sites.
Real-time mobile
deployment.
Integrated content
library.
Real-time
analytics.
Granular security
and sharing .

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Java Java .NET Apex . Net Java
Languages PHP Python Java Java Python PHP
Supported Ruby PHP VB.Net PHP Perl
Windows C# Perl Java C#
.NET PHP Ruby Python
Python Ruby
Ruby
Windows
language

AWS Premium Free Support is Developer Basic Support, 24x7x365 Live With GoGrid, support is
Premium Support Pricing available support is Premier Support, Support and available 24x7x365 at no
Support Pricing 24x7x365 from charged on a per Premier Support Expertise additional cost. Plus, every
Policy Bronze: on-site cloud incident basis. with customer is assigned a
$49/month hosting experts Administration.
Silver: dedicated service team that
Greater of $100 Developer ensures personalized service
- or - Support is only and a smooth customer
5% of monthly available for a fee, experience.
AWS usage on a per-case
Gold: basis.
Greater of $400
- or -
10% of monthly
AWS usage for
the first $0-$10K
7% of monthly
AWS usage from
$10K-$80K
5% of monthly
AWS usage from
$80K+
Platinum
Greater of $15K
- or -
10% of monthly
AWS usage

Available Available Available Available Available Available
Prepaid plan
availability

Amazon The user is solely The user is solely All networking Rackspace offers Customer is responsible for
Data S3:Amazon S3 responsible for responsible for components, SSL four main backup maintaining security and for
backup PUT and COPY securing and securing and accelerators, load strategies for your
maintaining patches and
backing up the backing up the balancers, Web specific needs.
operations data servers, and disaster recovery systems,
Application and
synchronously any Content. application Strategy 1: Daily except to the extent GoGrid
store your data Google has no servers are Full Backups. specifically accepts such
across multiple responsibility or configured in a It provides the responsibility by listing such
facilities before liability for the redundant fastest data service features in
deletion or failure configuration. restore, but comes
returning Customer's Signup (subject
to store any with a premium
SUCCESS. It All customer data cost to the limitations of liability
Content and other
also regularly is stored on a in Section 8 and elsewhere
communications
verifies the maintained or primary database Strategy 2: in this Agreement). Whether
integrity of data transmitted server that is Weekly Full or not Customer's Signup
stored using through use of clustered with a Backup + Daily calls on GoGrid to maintain
checksums.In the Service. backup database Differential back-ups, Customer will
server for Backups
addition, it keep a back-up copy of all
redundancy It provides a
calculates Daily Backup of data hosted by GoGrid.
checksums on all All customer data all modified files

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network traffic to is stored on disk and directories,
detect corruption storage that is since your last
of data packets mirrored across full backup
different storage
when storing or
cabinets and Strategy 3:
retrieving data. controllers Weekly Full
Backup + Daily
Amazon RDS All customer Incremental
Provides data, up to the Backups
automatic backup last committed It provides a
facility and transaction, is Daily Backup of
automatically all modified files
enable restoration
backed up to a and directories,
to any point primary tape since your
within the library on a last backup –
retention nightly basis regardless of
period.It whether it was a
provides free Backup tapes are Full Backup or
backup storage immediately not.
cloned to a
up to the size of
second tape Strategy 4:
the provisioned library to verify Weekly Full
database. their integrity, Backups Only
and the clones are It is designed for
SimpleDB : In moved to secure, servers that do not
this data is fire-resistant, off- house data
synchronously site storage on a essential to
regular basis. maintaining your
copied to
Disaster recovery online business.
multiple nodes plans are in place. Examples of such
within different servers would be
data centers to staging or
prevent any data development
loss in the event servers.
of a hardware
failure or
network
disruption. A
number of
backup tools
have been
developed by the
Amazon
SimpleDB
ecosystem,
offering simple
backups of
domain data to
Amazon S3.

Amazon EC2 It App Engine runs Filtering Routers Session security Enterprise It involves hardware
Data security includes web Java applications Firewalls and auditing. firewalls,email firewalls sitting between the
using the Java 6 Cryptographic Physical Security accounts include
service interfaces physical and virtual
virtual machine Protection of Logical Network antivirus and
to configure Messages infrastructure, dedicated
(JVM). The JVM Security spam protection.
firewall. It also runs in a secured Software Host Security SSL capabilities layer to VLANs for every
provides a way to "sandbox" Security Patch Database Security available as an account, VPN tunnels

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encrypt the API environment to Management add on service connected directly to your
calls in transit isolate your centralized Transmission private data center, and
with SSL to application for monitoring, Level Security dedicated circuits to the
service and correlation, and
maintain GoGrid cloud.
security. The analysis systems
confidentiality. JVM can execute Network
Amazon S3 :It any Java Segmentation GoGrid also offers several
provides four bytecode that Service additional security layers
different access operates within Administration through its partnerships with
control the sandbox Access vendors Art of Defence and
mechanisms: restrictions Physical Security CohesiveFT. Art of
The Python
Identity and Defence‟s Hyperguard
interpreter also
Access distributed firewall
runs in a secured
Management complements and extends
"sandbox"
(IAM) policies, the network-based security
environment to
Access Control infrastructure of the GoGrid
isolate your Cloud
Lists (ACLs),
application for
bucket policies,
service and
and query string
security
authentication.

IV. CONCLUSION some of the service providers provides a brief
overview of them.
Cloud services are an ideal way to manage all your
digital content without limitations. While there is
certainly some overlap between each of these
services, cloud services are unique because they V. REFERENCES
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LIPIKA BOSE
(B.TECH HONS-COMPUTER SCIENCE, M.TECH PURSUING-COMPUTER SCIENCE).
PRESENTLY WORKING-:
SOFTWARE DEVELOPER, HCL TECHNOLOGIES.

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