Towards techniques, challenges and efforts of software as a service layer based on business applications in cloud environments

Abstract

Purpose Cloud computing is qualified to present proper limitless storage and computation resources to users as services throughout the internet. Software as a service (SaaS) layer is the key paradigm perspective in the software layer of the cloud computing. SaaS is connected by business applications to access consumers on existing public, private and hybrid cloud models. This purpose of this paper is to present a discussion and analysis on the SaaS layer based on business applications in the cloud environment in form of a classical taxonomy to recognize the existing techniques, challenges and efforts. Design/methodology/approach Existing techniques, challenges and efforts are classified into four categories: platform-dependent, application-dependent, data-dependent and security-dependent mechanisms. The SaaS layer mechanisms are compared with each other according to the important factors such as the structural properties, quality of service metrics, applied algorithms and measurement tools. Findings The benefits and weaknesses of each research study are analyzed. In the comparison results, the authors observed that the application-based method, the non-heuristic algorithms, the business process method have the highest percentage of the usage in this literature. Originality/value The SaaS layer mechanisms based on business applications have some main features such as high accessibility, compatibility, reusability and collaboration to provide activated application and operation services for user with help of Web browsers. A comprehensive analysis was presented as originality on the SaaS layer mechanisms based on business applications for high level of the cloud environment that 46 peer-reviewed studies were considered.