Identifying Cloud computing usage patterns

The current end-users who are developing Cloud-based applications are struggling with multiple solutions for application programming interfaces (APIs) coming from different providers. This fact is partially a consequence of the focus of these APIs on the service provider expectations not on the end-user requirements. In the design of a generic API for Cloud application development, the first step should be the identification of the current Cloud computing use cases. The next step should be the identification of some patterns in these use cases that will be finally exposed to the developers as blocks (templates of the API) for building complex Cloud-based applications. This paper describes the aims of a generic API for Cloud-based applications, discuss the existing Cloud use cases, and exposes the design of a collection of Cloud usage patterns.