Cost-aware challenges for workflow scheduling approaches in cloud computing environments: Taxonomy and opportunities

•Extensively reviews cost-aware workflow scheduling approaches in cloud computing.•Presents a set of taxonomy for cost-aware workflow scheduling challenges.•Critically analyzes reported cost-aware workflow scheduling challenges.•Provides useful recommendations for service consumers and utility providers.

Workflow Scheduling (WFS) mainly focuses on task allocation to achieve the desired workload balancing by pursuing optimal utilization of available resources. At the same time, relevant performance criteria and system distribution structure must be considered to solve specific WFS problems in cloud computing by providing different services to cloud users on pay-as-you-go and on-demand basis. In the literature, various WFS challenges affecting WFS execution cost have been discussed. However, prior work did not consider such challenges collectively. The main objective of this paper is to facilitate researchers in selecting appropriate cost-aware WFS approaches from the available pool of alternatives. To achieve this objective, we conducted an extensive review to investigate and analyze the underlying concepts of the relevant approaches. The cost-aware relevant challenges of WFS in cloud computing are classified based on Quality of Service (QoS) performance, system functionality and system architecture, which ultimately result in a taxonomy set. Some research opportunities are also discussed that help in identifying future research directions in the area of cloud computing. The findings of this review provide a roadmap for developing cost-aware models, which will motivate researchers to propose better cost-aware approaches for service consumers and/or utility providers in cloud computing.