Cloud Brokering: Current Practices and Upcoming Challenges

The booming cloud computing industry offers a plethora of services. Navigation through these services is a long and perilous process. Cloud brokers can help in this journey, offering a more comprehensible view to the cloud service customers and service orchestration opportunities. From the service provider perspective, brokers facilitate reaching customers. In this invited article, the authors present a broad overview of cloud brokering. The article starts with a description of cloud brokers, the related taxonomy, their place in the business environment, and the legal framework. It briefly summarizes existing broker offers and cloud brokering research topics and discusses future challenges of cloud brokering.