Software Engineering Research Gaps in the Cloud

Abstract

This paper takes a systematic review methodology to unearth the reason for a slow adoption of cloud computing by businesses, despite the user interests and cloud advancements gained recently. The key finding is that the IT industry has taken different modelling approaches to engineer and deliver the cloud services based on the goals of different key cloud players, thereby raising various adoption challenges and concerns. In this context, there is a need for rethinking Software Engineering concepts. This motivates us to question whether the existing Software Engineering theories and modelling principles are sufficient for the new cloud computing paradigm. Due to the paucity of a comprehensive review in literature, the main aim of this review article is to identify such research gaps and insufficiencies in Software Engineering, and to provide recommendations for bridging these gaps. In this work, the systemic review of the state of the art of cloud computing has resulted in identifying four major cloud modelling gaps that require prime attention. The paper discusses these gaps and identifies the key Software Engineering challenges prevalent in addressing each of these gaps. Finally, the author proposes five topmost research recommendations specifically designed for overcoming these gaps/challenges in order to facilitate a sustainable cloud adoption. Overall, the author’s findings have established the need to rethink Software Engineering theories for arriving at a multilateral or distributed cloud modelling approach. With such rethinking, the proposed cloud design automatically incorporates cloud user-roles, interoperability, intelligent automation and trusted cloud infrastructure strategies for achieving a sustainable cloud framework of the future.