An agency perspective to cloud computing

Abstract

The field of cloud computing is strongly affected by conflicts of interest between providers and users of resources. A comprehensive and integrative model for representing and analyzing these conflicts on a theoretically well-founded basis is, however, still lacking. Therefore, this paper establishes such a model based on economic agency theory. Employing two realistic example scenarios, we identify representative challenges faced by cloud users and generalize them as typical problems present in agency relations. Based on this conception, we correlate existing practices and strategies from cloud computing with corresponding abstract instruments from agency theory. Finally, we identify approaches that are – even if suggested by economic theory – not practically employed in the cloud domain and discuss the potential to utilize them in future technical and non-technical developments.