Creating standardized products for electronic markets

Cloud computing is supposed to offer resources (i.e., data, software, and hardware services) in a manner similar to traditional utilities such as water, electricity, gas, and telephony. However, the current Cloud market is fragmented and static, preventing the successful implementation of ubiquitous computing on demand. In order to address the issue of fragmentation, commodity Cloud marketplaces have been suggested. However, as those marketplaces still suffer from being static (i.e., not being capable to adapt to changing market conditions and to the dynamics of user requirements for services), they do not operate at the optimal point. In this paper, we address this issue by channeling demand and supply into a few standardized services that are automatically adapted to user requirements in regular time intervals. For this, we utilize clustering algorithms and monitor the requirements of users. In order to avoid any cost to the user through these adaptations, we automatically adapt service level specifications of users to newly defined standardized goods. Using a simulation framework, we evaluate our approach and show its benefits to end users.

► High variety in services traded on cloud markets results in low market liquidity.
► Standardization of computational resources increases liquidity of cloud markets.
► Standardized products are automatically adapted to the changing needs of users.
► A simulation-based evaluation shows the benefits of computational product standardization.