Emmanuel Udoh

An Intelligent Power Load Control/Switching System Using an Energy Meter and Relay Circuit

Energy conservation and its efficient utilization especially in cloud data centers has been a subject of discourse amongst numerous stakeholders. Advancement in information technology tools provides a solution to automating the process of electricity metering as well as remote load control alternatives. This paper presents an energy meter reader implemented with a microcontroller based logic methodology fused with a building automation system to implement remote load control by home owners using SMS from a GSM phone. A password based relay circuit was incorporated to ensure secure switching by the user. The system when deployed can enable users query and set energy consumption rates remotely so as to reduce the cost on final consumers as well as conserve energy. This is could be a useful system in the green-based design of cloud data centers.

Web Services Gateway: Taking Advantage of the Cloud

Cloud computing has many advantages and is being used increasingly as an efficient and safe solution for web based services. This on-demnd self-service provides network access to a shared pooi of redundant computing resources. Software applications are being developed in the cloud and there are demands for the interoperability of these applications. A common way to meet this demand is the development of Web services applications, taking advantage of Service-oriented architecture principles. These loosely coupled Web base components pose some security challenges. This paper examines Security as a Service SECaaS solutions, as well to propose a new approach to security management in the cloud.

Mobile and Wireless Computing towards Sustainable and Ubiquitous Clouds Services

The ever-growing cloud computing and services provide dynamic intelligence and play an increasingly critical role in all aspects of our lives. By taking advantage of virtualized resources, cloud computing services presents an attractive means to address the challenges while realizing the potential of Mobile and Wireless Computing (MWC). The MWC paradigm can be generalized to include mobile devices, which not only incorporate sophisticated methods for users to interact with the online world through numerous applications in their devices, but are endowed with multiple sensors that enable them to contribute data as nodes in the IoT. In this context, mobile cloud services that enable widespread data collection through mobile devices and collaborative use of mobile devices to enhance existing and realize new applications are very much of interest. As such, the MWC has come to the picture seeking solutions for computing and IT infrastructures to be energy efficient and environmentally friendly. This special issue is in response to the increasing convergence between MWC and cloud services, while different approaches exist, challenges and opportunities are numerous in this context. The research papers selected for this special issue represent recent progresses in the field, including works on services computing and modeling, mobile cloud, U-Care cloud, vehicle networks, energy-aware architectures, and wireless sensor network technologies and applications. This special issue includes four extended version of the selected paper originally presented at the 17th Mobile Computing Workshop (MC, 2012) and the 8th Workshop on Wireless, Ad Hoc and Sensor Networks (WASN, 2012), held at Taipei, Taiwan; one extended version of the selected paper originally presented at the 4th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (IEEE CloudCom, 2012), held at Taipei, Taiwan; and one regular submission with 20% average acceptance rate for 2012 submissions in IJGHPC. The papers selected for this issue not only contribute valuable insights and results but also have particular relevance to the mobile, wireless and cloud computing community. All of them present high quality results for tackling problems arising from the ever-growing mobile and cloud services. We believe that this special issue provides novel ideas and stateof-the-art techniques in the field, and stimulates future research in the mobile and wireless services in clouds. Mobile and Wireless Computing towards Sustainable and Ubiquitous Clouds Services

Migrating to the Cloud: The Sullivan University Experience

The growth in data traffic within higher institutions has always been accompanied with the adoption of a more scalable IT infrastructure. With the increasing budgetary constraints, cloud computing a disruptive technology presents an attractive means to address the scalability challenges while realizing the potential of ubiquitous IT services. The on-demand business proposition of the cloud provides virtualized resources software, platform, and infrastructure with far-reaching efficiencies that have lowered the initial and operating IT costs for both small and large organizations. In migrating to the cloud environments, various organizations encounter challenges and experiences which are worthy of considerations by new entrants and established users. In this paper, the authors present the experiences of Sullivan University in transitioning to the complex cloud environment, in which a mixture of pilot and phased conversion steps were deployed in the migration process.

Using the Balanced Scorecard Approach to Appraise the Performance of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing and the Internet of Things IoT are currently the two dominant Internet technologies, but cloud computing embodies the maturity of the computing field with its clear path to software generation, transmission, distribution and control. The growth and popularity of cloud-virtualized resources infrastructure, platform and software, have been accompanied with an increase in cloud performance evaluation that could be used for decision-making. As reported in the literature, most of the evaluations and simulations tend to be one-dimensional that focus on easily measurable criteria such as load balancing and response time. This preliminary paper presents a more holistic approach using the technique of balanced scorecard that analyses cloud computing with respect to finance, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth perspectives. A critical analysis shows that cost reduction is not enough to cause a customer to embrace cloud computing. Other factors such as value proposition, internal and growth perspectives also play a role.

Cloud Infrastructure for Higher Education: The Sullivan Experience

The growth in data traffic within higher institutions has always been accompanied with the adoption of a more scalable IT infrastructure. With the increasing budgetary constraints, cloud computing (a disruptive technology) presents an attractive means to address the scalability challenges while realizing the potential of ubiquitous IT services. The on-demand business proposition of the cloud provides virtualized resources (software, platform, and infrastructure) with far-reaching efficiencies that have lowered the initial and operating IT costs for both small and large organizations. In migrating to the cloud environments, various organizations encounter challenges and experiences which are worthy of considerations by new entrants and established users. In this paper, we present the experiences of Sullivan University in transitioning to the complex cloud environment, in which a mixture of pilot and phased conversion steps were deployed in the migration process.

A Performance Analysis of Cloud Computing Using the Balanced Scorecard Approach

Cloud computing and the Internet of Things (IoT) are currently the two dominant Internet technologies, but cloud computing embodies the maturity of the computing field with its clear path to software generation, transmission, distribution and control. The growth and popularity of cloud-virtualized resources (infrastructure, platform and software), have been accompanied with an increase in cloud performance evaluation that could be used for decision-making. As reported in the literature, most of the evaluations and simulations tend to be one dimensional that focus on easily measurable criteria such as load balancing and response time. This paper presents a more holistic approach using the technique of balanced scorecard that analyses cloud computing with respect to finance, customer, internal processes, and learning and growth perspectives. A critical analysis shows that cost reduction is not enough to cause a customer to embrace cloud computing. Other factors such as value proposition, internal and growth perspectives also play a role.