Cloud SaaS: Models and transformation

Abstract

Cloud computing is a new and upcoming computing model where the computational resources are offered as services, remotely over a network. The software applications running as cloud SaaS are targeted on different platforms. The constantly evolving software technologies may result in the obsolescence of the legacy applications. It, therefore, becomes an essential requisite to adopt a software development methodology that could alleviate the undesirable effects of technology change. The Model Driven Architecture (MDA) approach becomes the obvious choice where the models drive the software development process. These models are defined at different levels of abstraction; and automated tools are used for model-to-model and model-to-code transformations between the levels. In this paper, the authors illustrate an MDA-based approach for developing cloud software applications making them more robust, flexible and agile, in the wake of changing technologies. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.