Resources On-demand Research Articles

Research on Auto-Scaling of Web Applications in Cloud: Survey, Trends and Future Directions

Cloud computing emerging environment attracts many applications providers to deploy web applications on cloud data centers. The primary area of attraction is elasticity, which allows to auto-scale the resources on-demand. However, web applications usually have dynamic workload and hard to predict. Cloud service providers and researchers are working to reduce the cost while maintaining the Quality of Service (QoS). One of the key challenges for web application in cloud computing is auto-scaling. The auto-scaling in cloud computing is still in infancy and required detail investigation of taxonomy, approach and types of resources mapped to the current research. In this article, we presented the literature survey for auto-scaling techniques of web applications in cloud computing. This survey supports the research community to find the requirements in auto-scaling techniques. We present a taxonomy of reviewed articles with parameters such as auto-scaling techniques, approach, resources, monitoring tool, experiment, workload, and metric, etc. Based on the analysis, we proposed the new areas of research in this direction.

Embedded Socio-oriented Model for End-to-End Reliable Stream Schedules by Using Collaborative Outsourcing in MP2P Systems

File-sharing systems have, in the past few years, witnessed an upsurge in research development and implementation of new technologies, and in the deployment of actual solutions and technologies. The type of protocol used to interconnect embedded nodes has a decisive impact on whether the system can operate in a deterministic way. File chunk streaming policy plays a major role for the quality of the end-to-end service provision, where, along with the diffusion process, they both aim to provide availability of the resources on-demand. Considering that reliability and availability are affected by the temporal characteristics, this work proposes an embedded framework using a k-hop collaborative outsourcing scheme for enabling and preserving the reliability in any requested path and for any requested resources. The proposed replication scheme takes into account the pre-determined vehicular mobility—as real-time users—in a k-hop path. The outsourcing strategy uses a sequential scheme for caching requested high-ranked resources onto neighboring nodes. The scheme takes into consideration the community-oriented triggered feedback for cluster formation and topology updates, the different file chunks’ capacities, the relay epoch and mobility considerations of each node in the k-hop path for evaluating the device's outsourcing schedules in order to enable end-to-end reliable streaming. Simulation experiments show that the proposed model, through the efficiency of the proposed collaborative streaming policy, can provide scalability and increases the successful delivery rate while it improves significantly the throughput response of the system.

Pricing strategies and models for the provision of digitized texts in higher education

The paper describes research into charging mechanisms for the delivery of digitized texts to students in the higher education sector. A satisfactory pricing model in this domain is urgently required. The history and background of the use and pricing of digitized texts for students in the higher education sector is examined. Issues of economics in the electronic era are described. The issues involved are outlined in relation to the stakeholders involved, namely academics, authors, the CLA (Copyright Licensing Agency), HERON (Higher Education Resources On-demand) libraries in the HE sector, publishers and students. Past projects and research conducted to date are considered and the results discussed. Particular reference is made to the HERON project, a service provided for the UK higher education community that delivers copyright clearance, digitization and delivery of the text to UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). HERON is also building up a national database and resource bank of the texts. Other electronic resource models are considered, in particular library initiatives. International projects are covered in relation to how pricing issues are addressed throughout the world, particularly in the USA. The case is proposed of the benefits to all stakeholders of establishing a mutually acceptable pricing model for the distribution of digitized texts to the HE/FE community. The PELICAN project had the ultimate aim of developing pricing models for the delivery of digitized text to the UK HE community, satisfying all stakeholders as far as possible. The project’s initial research findings are described, including a table of the possible pricing mechanisms and initial conclusions drawn.

Higher Education Resources ON demand — the HERON service

The demand for heavily used materials has led to Universities creating short loan collections and course readers — both have their problems, possibly soluble through digitisation. But the eLib On Demand/Electronic Reserve impact study made it clear that the economics of rights clearance and digitisation necessitated a cooperative approach. Addressing this the eLib project HERON, Higher Education Resources ON demand, is developing software and procedures to streamline rights clearance and digitisation and make it easier to check if texts have already been digitised. The operation of the software from pack building to copyright clearance, purchasing and fulfilment is described. HERON will be a self supporting commercial service by 2001.