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The importance of marketplace frameworks, where demand and supply for electronic services meet, has gained momentum with the recent technological innovations of cloud computing. In particular the emerging market for cloud and XaaS offerings is, in the current early stage of development, scattered and represented by many single offerings. New interm...
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... within our investigation, does not support dynamic price and revenue networks. Composite services and resolutions are supported by the Google Apps Marketplace and AppExchange from Salesforce.com. According to the imposed restrictions and the current demand, in AppExchange from Salesforce.com and Zoho real-time service resolution takes place. Most of the examined marketplaces keep some information about users which help them personalize and ease service recommendations but only Android Market performs a customer profile based resolution. Following the analysis of the electronic marketplaces in the previous section, we have identified the most relevant user roles for a cloud-based marketplace. On the consumer side, we can distinguish between a) end-consumers, who just consume a certain service, b) business customers, in particular SMEs, who take advantage of the cloud services available on the marketplace and c) enterprises that exploit the platform resources as a special case of cloud bursting. On the provider side, we can distinguish between Network as a Service (NaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) providers [18]. Another important entity in service oriented infrastructures and Clouds is the service aggregator with the role of both consumer and provider, who combines offerings of different types into new composite products that will be merchandised afterwards in the marketplace. The main marketplaces processes are separated in four different phases (Fig. 1). In the first phase, so called information phase, the market players need to exchange information. A service provider describes his products technically and economically, while a consumer is looking and searching for the specific service that might fit his needs. In the second phase, after the consumer has chosen certain services, resolution and price building takes place. The consumer is allowed to define specific constraints for his/her request or select from a set of customization options, predefined by the service provider, for a particular product. The marketplace will identify any business dependencies and propose a selection of services and resources that satisfy the constraints that are defined by the consumer. Part of this process are the price aggregations and the selection of appropriate pricing models based on a) the request parameters, b) the availability of services and resources from the Cloud, c) the user profile and finally d) the experience from previous selections exploiting the analytics functionality of the marketplace. Following the proposal(s) from the marketplace, customers are able to negotiate (if allowed by the product definition) the explicit terms and conditions under which the product and its dependencies will be provisioned. In that sense, if a customer is not satisfied with the returned results, he/she is able to change his/her constrains and customization options and repeat the resolution process. In the third phase, when provider and consumer have agreed on a specific product and price, a legally-binding contract has to be defined. The contract, which is created automatically from the information obtained in the previous phases includes also a set of appropriate SLAs with contains, compensations and provisioning policies for all involved entities. The outcome of this phase is a signed contract which becomes a legally binding document for both sides. The final phase of the marketplace is the so-called settlement. The settlement has two major activities: a) the delivery, which means that the consumer gets access to and can use the contracted service or application and b) the payment. Part of the settlement phase is the actual deployment and instantiation of the required services on the Cloud, a process that is carried out from the underlying layers of the platform. Payment, on the other hand, involves the transfer of money from the consumer to the provider through the marketplace. This activity also includes the automatic distribution of the income among all the involved parties in case a product is an aggregation of offerings from different providers. The four main phases of the marketplace are also enhanced with the marketplace analytics functionality. The marketplace analytics is a horizontal process that aggregates information from various sources (operational, business, social, user feedback) in order to gain knowledge for improving the business terms and conditions for new products and business models. Based on the knowledge on the performance of previous business resolutions, the marketplace can perform more efficient selections of products, identify optimal pricing models and recommend product compositions, which will lead to increased revenues for all involved stakeholders that are involved in the product lifecycle. The detailed architectural design of the marketplace including the main components, repositories and interfaces is depicted in Fig. 2. On the top layer, the marketplace includes a frontend for communication with the end-users which is composed of four elements: a) marketplace management , where the marketplace manager can define price models, settlement rules and policies, the service provider defines the business terms and conditions for a product based on its functional and non-functional specification and also customers that contract applications and services; b) composition support , where a consumer defines the constraints for his request and customizes the product; c) payment , where providers and consumers get information about payments, revenues and the revenue sharing; and finally d) reporting , where providers and customers can access reports and information about services consumption and billing, statistics and results of simulations. The marketplace architecture defines four main repositories (although other components may have their own persistence mechanisms). The first repository is the Product Catalogue , where the product specification is stored and linked to the corresponding services and applications in the service repository. This repository is always up-to-date, with the providers allowed to update or delete dynamically the created products. Off course these changes only affect the future selections and not the contracted or past products. A second repository is the Contracts Repository , where the agreements between providers and consumers for each marketplace transaction are stored. The contracts stored in this repository also include the detailed specification of the contracted product (customization parameters, SLAs for the QoS parameters, business and operational management policies, etc.). The Marketplace Configuration repository is used for the internal operation of the marketplace environment storing information for user profiles, user rights etc. Finally, the Charging and Settlement repository keeps the accounting information for each product that is instantiated and provisioned on the Cloud. This information is used afterwards for the payment and revenue share between the various stakeholders. In the business logic layer we have identified and implemented the following ...
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... In the centralized client-server architecture model, users access the platform functionalities and the market backend with the catalog, matching and settlement functionality as well as the database via (more or less comprehensive) frontends (e.g. Menychtas et al. 2012). In many cases, the marketplace application is linked with enterprise applications for marketing, accounting, HR and the like. ...
It is well known that electronic markets are closely related to blockchain or distributed ledger technologies. This paper analyzes this relationship and reveals five perspectives. First, blockchain technologies are a new market segment in itself and offer potential for digital transformation. Second, cryptocurrencies and token may be conceived as goods that are traded on electronic markets. Third, cryptocurrencies may serve as efficient means of payment in electronic markets. Fourth, blockchain and distributed ledger technologies in general are technological infrastructures for centralized and decentralized electronic markets. Finally, electronic market mechanisms may be implemented in consensus mechanisms of blockchain technologies.
... Fig. 1 Business processes in the digital marketplace. Based on Menychtas et al. [5] Thanks to the open and unregulated nature of the Internet, we have experienced an unprecedented growth of commercial and social possibilities on a global scale. However, hidden in plain sight, the Internet has at the same time created a platform for a new asset, personal data, e.g., a platform for the creation, collection, processing and trading of information about us as the Internet users. ...
... Let us view the online marketplace from the perspective of processes that create and use data. The model by Menychtas et al. [5] identified four business processes in the online marketplace and the exchange of information between these business processes: ...
Can consumer ownership schemes provide a more democratic financing mechanism for the online marketplace? When it comes to being successful as an online platform, size matters. The network effect, which tells us that the value of a platform increases exponentially as a function of the user base, creates a natural concentration of power, if you’re a vendor trying to sell or advertise products, you will pick the platform with the largest audience. The network effect also creates an exit barrier, as moving to a competing platform without the same reach and user base means fewer potential customers. The consumer ownership scheme that I will be focusing on is the Consumer Stock Ownership Plan pioneered by Louis Kelso. The CSOP is a method of corporate finance that enables consumers to buy an ownership interest in a company on which they heavily rely. It is a democratic capitalistic tool to mitigate the harm caused monopolies or oligopolies. A CSOP does not require consumers to buy the company’s shares in the stock market. Instead, the company acquires its shares in a trust on behalf of consumers and uses dividends to amortise the investment. Shares that are fully amortised are transferred to their owners. In this essay, I make the case that CSOP financing for online marketplaces makes sense for three reasons.
A CSOP does not discriminate against those who lack the capital to acquire shares in the first place;
Users are an integral part of the value proposition of an online marketplace. A CSOP acknowledges this fact by making users owners.
Users’ data generates value, which indirectly flows back to users in a CSOP.
... After negotiations, a legally-binding contract will be created automatically. In the signed contract, a set of appropriate service level agreements (SLAs) with constraints, compensations and provisioning policies for both sides are stated clearly [7]. SLA is an important part of cloud resource trading but it is not prevalent in grid computing. ...
... SLA is an important part of cloud resource trading but it is not prevalent in grid computing. Settlement can be divided into two parts: service delivery and payment [7]. In service delivery phase, users get access to the cloud resources. ...
Compared with single cloud service providers, cloud exchange provides users with lower price and flexible options. However, conventional cloud exchange markets are suffering from a number of challenges such as central architecture being vulnerable to malicious attacks and cheating behaviours of third-party auctioneers. The recent advances in blockchain technologies bring the opportunities to overcome the limitations of cloud exchange. However, the integration of blockchain with cloud exchange is still in infancy and extensive research efforts are needed to tackle a number of research challenges. To bridge this gap, this paper presents an overview on using blockchain for cloud exchange. In particular, we first give an overview on cloud exchange. We then briefly survey blockchain technology and discuss the issues on using blockchain for cloud exchange in aspects of security, privacy, reputation systems and transaction management. Finally, we present the open research issues in this promising area.
... The architectures covered in the papers are usually distributed as well as federated and often involve some kind of platform or middleware for the integration and coordination of the actors (Nguyen and Ngo 2014;Gama et al. 2012). In 8 articles (mostly Service-oriented approaches), the role of such a middleware is comparable to a marketplace where the actors discover and negotiate about their cooperation (Menychtas et al. 2012;Bui et al. 2006). 71 articles discuss Cloud Computing. ...
For decades, the Data Warehouse (DW) has survived as a central architecture component in Business Intelligence and Analytics (BIA) landscapes despite a number of alternative concepts and continuous forces towards more decentralized structures. However, distributed concepts recently seem to have grown in relevance. This paper investigates causes and consequences of an increasing decentralization in order to derive recommendations for future BIA architectures. We have conducted a literature review for identifying relevant application drivers, challenges and building blocks for BIA solutions. The results suggest that particularly Internet of Things (IoT) applications drive federated analytical “ecosystem” solutions. In two case studies from the realm of Advanced Manufacturing we deepen the respective insights. On the one hand, our results underscore the business potential of integrated BIA solutions for IoT applications. On the other hand, the applications introduce a set of particular challenges that can be mapped to DW characteristics, mainly regarding data history, integration, administration, and governance. Based on the results, we project the identified trends into the future and suggest a federated, platform-based solution with “Analytical Atoms”.
... service aggregators and service enablers). The marketplace enables consistency and standardization of services with unified billing and one-stop cloud solutions for consumers (Menychtas et al., 2012). ...
Cloud services are offered independently or combining two or more services to satisfy consumer requirements. Different types of cloud service providers such as direct sellers, resellers and aggregators provide services with different level of service features and quality. The selection of best suitable services involves multi-criteria nature of services to be compared with the presence of both qualitative and quantitative factors, which make it considerably more complex. To overcome this complexity, in this paper a fuzzy hybrid multi-criteria decision making approach has been proposed, which includes both qualitative and quantitative factors. The proposed hybrid approach considers the interdependent relationships among criteria. The vagueness and subjectivity in cloud service evaluation are handled with linguistic terms parameterized by triangular fuzzy numbers. Triangular fuzzy numbers are used in all pairwise comparison matrices in the Fuzzy ANP to determine the criteria weights and are utilized by Fuzzy TOPSIS and Fuzzy ELECTRE methods to rank the alternatives. The proposed approach selects the evaluation criteria based on the cloud service and supports cloud consumer towards selecting the best suitable cloud service. This strategy is demonstrated with selection of cloud based collaboration tool for designers. Finally, sensitivity analysis is performed to prove the robustness of the proposed approach.
... In a world of multi-stakeholder information and services, environments are required that will allow for the seamlessly integration of business and technical aspects into the service provision process. To this direction, emerging marketplaces aim at enabling the provision of "products" as potentially composite service offerings that may incorporate services from different providers within and across the cloud service stack layers [5]. Marketplaces provide a focal point for various stakeholders supporting the complete service lifecycle (planning, analysis and design, development and testing, provisioning, deployment, discovery, composition, execution, and monitoring [30]). ...
... The main marketplace processes are separated in four different phases (Fig. 2) as already described in [5]. In the first phase, so called information phase, the market players need to exchange information. ...
As Clouds mature and become ubiquitous, marketplace environments are developed facilitating the provision of services in a manner that emphasizes on the modular composition of individual services across different providers that crosscut the cloud service stack layers (i.e. composition of XaaS) to fulfil customers’ requirements. Besides acting as intermediaries for the search, selection and trading of services, such marketplaces should also support the complete service lifecycle and the consolidation of offerings from different providers with varying and often contradicting business goals. In this paper we present a one-stop cloud marketplace solution that addresses the aforementioned challenges while enabling the simulation of different business cases to optimize service offerings according to a wide and dynamic set of parameters. Moreover, the proposed solution introduces advanced aggregated price models and integrates a new resolution approach that incorporates business intelligence into the search and selection processes. We also demonstrate the operation of the implemented approach and evaluate its effectiveness using a real-world scenario, based on a taxi fleet management application.
... The project has implemented an eMarketplace framework [17] that deals with the business and pricing aspects of service offerings [18]. It enables trading of any type of cloud services, including composite services that consist of atomic services offered by different providers. ...
The rapid evolution of the cloud market is leading to the emergence of new services, new ways for service provisioning and new interaction and collaboration models both amongst cloud providers and service ecosystems exploiting cloud resources. Service Level Agreements (SLAs) govern the aforementioned relationships by defining the terms of engagement for the participating entities.
... The trade of any XaaS is considered one of the main objectives of the marketplace, where X is infrastructure, platform or software. The resource model therefore must be designed carefully in order to accommodate all technical and business specifications of any XaaS offering [22]. Figure 1 shows the resource model as an XML schema. ...
... The resource model includes the following information about each resource [22]; ...
... Resource XML Schema. Inspired by[22] ...
Cloud Computing represents a new era where computing is offered as a service rather than as a physical product. The next level of flexibility will be achieved when Cloud Computing services can be automatically traded. This paper focuses on providing the foundation for simple and flexible Cloud resource trading. This is achieved by proposing vocabularies for the trading of Cloud resources and algorithms for a Cloud marketplace. A multi-attribute combinatorial marketplace is proposed as a solution for situations where Cloud resources need to be traded in combination (bundles). Vocabularies are introduced to serve as a foundation to build standards for Cloud resources trading.
... Following the analysis of the electronic marketplaces, the most relevant user roles in a cloud marketplace have been presented in [25]. On the consumer side, we can distinguish between end-consumers, who just consume a certain service, business customers, who take advantage of the cloud services available on the marketplace and enterprises that exploit the platform resources as a special case of cloud bursting. ...
... Eight of the most sophisticated, existing electronic marketplaces have been evaluated in [25], based on their support to a typically market transaction. AppExchange from Salesforce.com is one of the most advanced marketplaces, within the evaluation, since it covers most of the required features for trading cloud-based services. ...
Cloud computing has changed considerably the architecture of modern IT systems introducing new design principles based on the notion of the service as main building unit. Decoupling the service offering from the underlying infrastructure, cloud computing allows for more efficient management of the required resources which in business level is translated into higher flexibility and increased profit. To this end, Clouds are not only an innovative technological environment but also a beneficial market for all the involved stakeholders. This market expands continuously and new service aggregations, customizations and business models are offered in order to cover the needs of all end-users. However, even in this new business ecosystem, the question still remains: “Which offering should I buy”? In this paper we present an approach for incorporating business intelligence in cloud marketplaces through a mechanism for answering this question based on the individual requirements and use profile of each particular cloud customer.
... This automation considerably lowers the effort for clients to discover and select cloud services, which are compatible to the client requirements as this is now a manual and sometimes time consuming task. Menychtas et al. [21] identify four major phases of electronic marketplaces. All processes within these areas are implemented and enriched by TRESOR components. ...
