Towards a Contextualization Solution for Cloud Platform Services

We propose a cloud contextualization mechanism which operates in two stages, contextualization of VM images prior to service deployment (PaaS level) and self contextualization of VM instances created from the image (IaaS level). The contextualization tools are implemented as part of the OPTIMIS Toolkit, a set of software components for simplified management of cloud services and infrastructures. We present the architecture of our contextualization tools and the feasibility of our contextualization mechanism is demonstrated in a three tier web application scenario. Preliminary performance results suggest acceptable performance and scalability of our prototype.