Defining an Ontological Framework for Modelling Policies in Cloud Environments

摘要

Cloud computing enables enterprises to realise significant cost savings whilst accelerating the development of new innovative applications. Nevertheless, due to security concerns, enterprises are reluctant to migrate their operations to the cloud. In addition, the proliferation of cloud services transforms the enterprise IT environment into a complex ecosystem of collaborating services. One way to tame this complexity and alleviate the security concerns is to rely on policies that regulate the deployment, delivery and governance of cloud services. However, the heterogeneity inherent in such services, coupled with the dynamic nature of cloud environments, hinders the formulation of effective and interoperable policies. This paper proposes a generic framework for the definition and representation of policies that are enforceable across diverse administrative domains and are amenable to automated correctness checks.