A comparative evaluation of cloud migration optimization approaches: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Context: Developments in cloud computing have made it attractive for consumers to migrate their applications to the cloud environment. However, in the crowded cloud market, application customers and providers face the problem of how to assess and cho ose appropriate service providers for migrating the ir applications to the cloud. Objective: The main goal of this systematic review to identify and classify the current cloud migration optimization approaches. The ancillary goal is to p resent a comparative evaluation of the existing optimization approaches to application migration in cloud computing, in order to clarify the gaps in the existing approaches and identify promising directions in future research. Method: We performed a systematic review of the software engineering literature between 2010 and 2014 to accomplish the objectives of the study. Results: The use of the search string in databases resulted in the identification of 1548 studies. After applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, the number of studies was reduced to 25 studies which were identified as the primary studies. Five different approaches to exploiting the optimization of application migration to the cloud were identified, namely, architecture-based optimization, model-based optimization, tool-based optimization, single objective optimizat ion, and multi-objective optimization. Conclusion: The study findings reveal an increased interested in optimization approaches to migrating applications to the cloud in recent years. However, cloud migration optimization approaches, including the architecture-based, model-based, tool-based, single objective and multi-objective optimization approaches, are still in the early stages of research and require more research investigation. In addition, we found that the multi-objective optimization approach provides the best solutions to multi-optimization problems and supports decision-making, and thus requires a high level of research attention. Related topics regarding service-level agreement violation, elasticity, and full automation of cloud migration optimization also require future research attention.