SONA: A service oriented nodes architecture for developing Cloud Computing applications

The main goal of this paper firstly is to propose a new definition for the term `Cloud Computing' which helps understanding it more clearly from the perspective of developing Cloud Computing applications. The second one is to build a general architecture for developing Cloud Computing applications which provides a starting point for further discussion and possible coordination with other work to build a standard methodology for developing Cloud Computing applications. The new architecture, Service Oriented Nodes Architecture (SONA), is a multi-node architecture which is suitable for building/developing Cloud Computing applications from scratch with different contexts. It consists of three nodes (1) Client/Developer Node, (2) Interface/Intermediate Node, and (3) the Cloud Node. All of these nodes have its own functions/roles and is oriented to deliver/use/provide services, so the architecture is called by that name. Also, this paper offers an initial exploratory analysis of key Cloud Computing concepts such as, Cloud Computing definition, advantages/challenges, best suited Cloud Computing applications area, and finally the STAR architecture, which is the base architecture of this work.