[Paper Review] A Systematic Mapping Study on Cloud Computing

José Fernando S. Carvalho, Paulo Anselmo da Mota Silveira Neto+3 more|arXiv (Cornell University)|Aug 20, 2013

Cloud Computing and Resource Management72 references3 citations

TL;DR

This systematic mapping study synthesizes state-of-the-art research on Cloud Computing by analyzing 341 primary studies across eight key research questions. It identifies major challenges in economics, SLA, security, data storage, and elasticity, while mapping publication trends and highlighting underexplored areas like e-government and healthcare, offering a comprehensive overview of research gaps and trends in the field.

ABSTRACT

Cloud Computing emerges from the global economic crisis as an option to use computing resources from a more rational point of view. In other words, a cheaper way to have IT resources. However, issues as security and privacy, SLA (Service Layer Agreement), resource sharing, and billing has left open questions about the real gains of that model. This study aims to investigate state-of-the-art in Cloud Computing, identify gaps, challenges, synthesize available evidences both its use and development, and provides relevant information, clarifying open questions and common discussed issues about that model through literature. The good practices of systematic map- ping study methodology were adopted in order to reach those objectives. Al- though Cloud Computing is based on a business model with over 50 years of existence, evidences found in this study indicate that Cloud Computing still presents limitations that prevent the full use of the proposal on-demand.

Motivation & Objective

• To investigate the state of the art in Cloud Computing and identify research gaps and challenges.
• To synthesize available evidence on Cloud Computing's use, development, and limitations.
• To clarify open issues such as security, privacy, SLA, and economic benefits through a systematic review of literature.
• To map research trends and publication sources in Cloud Computing to guide future research.
• To provide actionable insights for practitioners and researchers by identifying underexplored application areas.

Proposed method

• Applied systematic mapping study (MS) methodology combining best practices from systematic reviews (SR) and MS frameworks.
• Defined eight research questions (RQs) covering economic, SLA, social, architectural, elasticity, storage, monitoring, and security challenges.
• Conducted a multi-stage search strategy using refined keywords, validated with experts and researchers.
• Selected primary studies through predefined inclusion/exclusion criteria, with data extraction and classification by research question.
• Mapped studies to journals, conferences, and application domains to identify publication trends and research focus areas.
• Used public repositories (e.g., Google Drive links) to share full lists of sources and references for transparency and reproducibility.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 What challenges are associated with economic factors in Cloud Computing adoption for providers and customers?
• RQ2 What problems and solutions exist regarding Service-Level Agreements (SLA) and Quality of Service (QoS)?
• RQ3 What are the social and legal impacts of Cloud Computing, including government use and data privacy?
• RQ4 What are the key challenges in designing software architectures for SaaS and cloud infrastructure?
• RQ5 What techniques and issues are associated with the elasticity property in Cloud environments?

Key findings

• The most cited studies on economic challenges include works by Kondo, Kertesz, and Luo, highlighting cost-benefit trade-offs and pricing models.
• SLA-related research is dominated by studies on QoS guarantees, with key contributions from Kertesz, Luo, and Nae on contract-based service management.
• Security remains a top concern, with 341 studies cited in RQ8, including seminal works by Karger, Sandhu, and Zhou on access control and trust models.
• The top 10 conferences for Cloud Computing research include CloudCom, CLOUD, and SoCC, with CloudCom leading with 11 selected studies.
• The top 10 journals include IEEE Security & Privacy (8 studies), The Journal of Supercomputing (5), and Communications of the ACM (4).
• Non-traditional application areas such as healthcare, e-government, e-learning, and the textile industry are emerging, indicating underexplored research opportunities.