Analyzing Requirements Engineering for Cloud Computing

Abstract

Cloud computing is a business paradigm, where cloud providers offer resources (e.g., storage, computing, network) and cloud consumers use them after accepting a specific service level agreement. Cloud requirements can rapidly change over time, so organizations need to count with rapid methods to elicit, analyze, specify, verify, and manage dynamic requirements in a systematic and repeatable way. The existing works of this field are generally focused in a limited number of requirements and capabilities for cloud services. This chapter aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic literature review of academic researches done in requirements engineering for cloud computing area. During this study, some approaches for cloud computing were found that considered a limited number of characteristics (e.g., security, privacy, performance) and few activities involving diverse stakeholders. Generally, cloud stakeholders have got neither guidelines nor standards to manage multiple aspects of services in cloud environments. Thus, a literature review was first conducted and five dimensions are discussed (i.e., Contractual, Compliance, Financial, Operational, and Technical) in order to classify cloud characteristics, specify requirements, and support cloud contracts. Different specialists and experts may be requested to evaluate particular dimensions in the service level agreement and cloud service adoption. Finally, a simple sample is given to illustrate how to identify the cloud dimensions.