Tools for Cloud Accountability: A4Cloud Tutorial

Abstract : Cloud computing is becoming a key IT infrastructure technology being adopted progressively by companies and users. Still, there are issues and uncertainties surrounding its adoption, such as security and how users data is dealt with that require attention from developers, researchers, providers and users. The A4Cloud project tries to help solving the problem of accountability in the cloud by providing tools that support the process of achieving accountability. This paper presents the contents of the first A4Cloud tutorial. These contents include basic concepts and tools developed within the project. In particular, we will review how metrics can aid the accountability process and some of the tools that the A4Cloud project will produce such as the Data Track Tool (DTT) and the Cloud Offering Advisory Tool (COAT).