University of Twente Student Theses
Developing Objective Comparison Evaluation Framework for Comprehensive IaaS Assessment Using the AHP Method
Chalan, Ghusen Nabil (2024) Developing Objective Comparison Evaluation Framework for Comprehensive IaaS Assessment Using the AHP Method.
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| Abstract: | In today’s cloud computing landscape, Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) has emerged as one of the most popular solutions for organizations seeking flexible, scalable, and cost-efficient IT infrastructure. However, selecting and evaluating service offerings proves to be complicated and not accessible due to the wide variety of offerings in the marketplace and the solid competitive environment between the cloud service providers. Organizations often find themselves inundated with generalized information and marketing-driven offerings that fail to represent the true nature of the services being provided accurately. In order to tackle this problem, we researched and explored ways for organizations to select the most suitable IaaS providers' products based on set criteria that can involve aspects such as availability, performance, cost, security, scalability, and reliability and produced this artifact as a result. The thesis presents a comprehensive evaluation framework for IaaS products, built on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to structure the decision-making process systematically and objectively. The framework is designed to assess IaaS products based on six primary criteria: Availability, Performance, Scalability, Reliability, Security, and Cost-effectiveness. Each criterion is further broken down into sub-criteria with relevant metrics to measure it, allowing for a granular evaluation of products across different service components specifically catered to IaaS, such as virtualization, storage, networking, and servers. The framework focuses on providing flexibility to the users by allowing them custom weight assignments to each criterion, tailoring the evaluation process to their specific priorities and needs. A study case was conducted to validate the framework. Ten leading IaaS products were evaluated across five predefined scenarios: Balanced, Performance-Focused, Cost-Sensitive, Security-Centric, and Custom Scenario. Furthermore, we conducted a third-party evaluation with industry experts in cloud services to complement and validate the findings of our case study. The results, generated using an Excel-based AHP tool developed for this research and the validation process conducted after, show a comprehensive and objective ranking of the IaaS products based on their performance across these scenarios. The tool offers additional features such as scenario customization, consistency checks, and automated scorecards, making it an effective decision-support system. Challenges encountered during the validation process included data availability for specific metrics, particularly recovery time, network latency, and actual calculations of the total cost of ownership. These limitations were addressed through assumptions and industry benchmarks, though they highlight the need for further real-time testing in future research. Despite these challenges, the proposed framework offers a robust, flexible, and user-friendly approach to evaluating IaaS products, aiding organizations in making informed, data-driven decisions in a rapidly evolving cloud market. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | EEMCS: Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science |
| Subject: | 58 process technology |
| Programme: | Business Information Technology MSc (60025) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/104321 |
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