{\pi}-Control: A Personal Cloud Control Centre

TL;DR

The paper introduces ontrol, a user-centric personal control center for managing and limiting the effects of online cloud services, addressing the lack of effective tools for users.

Contribution

It proposes a novel user-centric model of cloud elements beyond traditional service layers and introduces a personal control console for user activities.

Findings

Conceptual model of cloud elements including trust zones

Design of a personal control console for users

Framework for managing online service interactions

Abstract

Consumption of online services and cloud computing offerings is on the rise, largely due to compelling advantages over traditional local applications. From a user perspective, these include zero-maintenance of software, the always-on nature of such services, mashups of different applications and the networking effect with other users. Associated disadvantages are known, but effective means and tools to limit their effect are not yet well-established and not yet generally available to service users. We propose (1) a user-centric model of cloud elements beyond the conventional <SPI>aaS layers, including activities across trust zones, and (2) a personal control console for all individual and collaborative user activities in the cloud.