JadexCloud - An Infrastructure for Enterprise Cloud Applications

Abstract

Cloud computing allows business users to scale up or down resource needs according to current demands (utility computing). Infrastructures for cloud computing can be distinguished with respect to the layer they operate on. In case of platform as a service (PAAS) frameworks are provided in order to simplify the construction of cloud applications relying on common base abstractions and tool sets. The focus of current PAAS frameworks is quite narrow and directed towards support for web applications and also visual tools for non-programmers. We envision that cloud computing can also substantially push forward typical enterprise applications if these applications are made to exploit cloud capabilities. In this paper we present an infrastructure for developing, deploying and managing distributed applications with the vision of distribution transparency in mind. The infrastructure is meant to be on PAAS layer but addresses developers instead of end users. It is founded on the active component paradigm for distributed applications, which allows applications being composed of agent-like autonomous entities interacting via services. The model facilitates building scalable and robust enterprise applications due to the high modularity and independently acting modules that can be replaced or restarted if unexpected errors occur. In addition to the infrastructure, a real world scenario of a distributed workflow management systems will be explained.