A generic QoS framework for cloud workflow systems

Due to the dynamic nature of cloud computing, how to achieve satisfactory QoS (Quality of Service) in cloud workflow systems becomes a challenge. Meanwhile, since QoS requirements have many dimensions, a unified system design for different QoS management components is required to reduce the system complexity and software development cost. Therefore, this paper proposes a generic QoS framework for cloud workflow systems. Covering the major stages of a workflow lifecycle, the framework consists of four components, viz. QoS requirement specification, QoS-aware service selection, QoS consistency monitoring and QoS violation handling. While there are many QoS dimensions, this paper illustrates a concrete performance framework as a case study and briefly touches others. We also demonstrate the system implementation and evaluate the effectiveness of the performance framework in our cloud workflow system.