Extending an open source enterprise service bus for cloud data access support

Abstract

In the last years Cloud computing has become popular among IT organizations aiming to reduce its operational costs. Applications can be designed to be run on the Cloud, and utilize its technologies, or can be partially or totally migrated to the Cloud. The application's architecture contains three layers: presentation, business logic, and data layer. The presentation layer provides a user friendly interface, and acts as intermediary between the user and the application logic. The business logic separates the business logic from the underlaying layers of the application. The Data Layer (DL) abstracts the underlaying database storage system from the business layer. It is responsible for storing the application's data. The DL is divided into two sublayers: Data Access Layer (DAL), and Database Layer (DBL). The former provides the abstraction to the business layer of the database operations, while the latter is responsible for the data persistency, and manipulation. When migrating an application to the Cloud, it can be fully or partially migrated. Each application layer can be hosted using different Cloud deployment models. Possible Cloud deployment models are: Private Cloud, Public Cloud, Community Cloud, and Hybrid Cloud. In this diploma thesis we focus on the database layer, which is one of the most expensive layers to build and maintain in an IT infrastructure. Application data is typically moved to the Cloud because of , e. g. Cloud bursting, data analysis, or backup and archiving. Currently, there is little support and guidance how to enable appropriate data access to the Cloud. In this diploma thesis the we extend an Open Source Enterprise Service Bus to provide support for enabling transparent data access in the Cloud. After a research in the different protocols used by the Cloud providers to manage and store data, we design and implement the needed components in the Enterprise Service Bus to provide the user transparent access to his data previously migrated to the Cloud.