Modeling and Economic Analysis of the Cloud Brokering Platform Under Uncertainty: Choosing a Risk/Profit Trade-off

This paper develops models for the analysis of a cloud brokering platform under conditions of risk and demand uncertainty, focusing on controlling the risk of not delivering the quality of service required by users. Such risk can occur as a result of inherent limitations of the best-effort connectivity. We take the approach of modern portfolio theory and show how the trade-off between risk and profit can be chosen by selecting efficient connectivity portfolios that combine the best-effort connectivity of different grades with premium-grade connectivity. We provide theoretical analysis of connectivity portfolio models and related insights delivered by numerical experiments that utilize the measurements of Internet traffic.