Cloud services and solutions have served as a shift in the computer industry and create new opportunities for users. Clouds have been described as easily usable and fluid in terms of expansion and contraction depending on the real-time needs. Although the cloud is promoted with several benefits, it is not always apparent for the users that this is the case. Understanding both the benefits and challenges that exist is substantial for a successful adoption to cloud. This master’s thesis is conducted in collaboration with Exsitec ABand aims to investigate how the adoption of the cloud service Microsoft Azure will affect the development process. Also, it aims to provide a best practice for potentially needed updated working procedures, in terms of satisfaction and learnability. The investigation was performed through interviews and the System Usability Scale, to assess how the end users experienced development in a cloud environment. The thesis revealed that the Azure portal has low overall usability, but that there also exists an inconsistency of that perception. Two major factors that contributed to the satisfaction and learnability was the lack of documentation and that the Azure portal was considered hard to master. The SUS score revealed that the mean value was below an acceptable level, and thus changes in the company’s working procedures need to be implemented. Internal documentation regarding how the company should use both cloud in general, as well as the portal in particular, are required in order to increase the learnability and subjective satisfaction.

Highly distributed environments (HDEs) are deployment environments that include powerful and robust machines in addition to resource-constrained and mobile devices such as laptops, personal digital assistants (or PDAs), smart-phones, GPS devices, sensors, etc. Developing software for HDEs is fundamentally different from the software development for central systems and stable distributed systems. This argument is discussed deeply and in-details throughout this dissertation. HDE applications are challenged by two problems: unreliable networks, and heterogeneity of hardware and software. Both challenges need careful handling, where the system must continue functioning and delivering the expected QoS. This dissertation is a direct response to the mentioned challenges of HDEs. The contribution of this dissertation is the cloud component model and its related formal language and tools. This is the general title. However, and to make this contribution clear, we prefer to present it in the following detailed form: (1) We propose a paradigm shift from distribution transparency to localization acknowledgment being the first class concern. (2) To achieve the above mentioned objective, we propose a novel component model called cloud component (CC). (3) In this dissertation we propose a new approach to assemble CCs using systematic methodology that maintains the properties of CC model. (4) Cloud component development process and cloud component based systems development process. (5) Location modeling and advanced localization for HDEs are the pivotal key in our contribution. (6) Formal language to model single CC, CC assembly, CC development process, and CC based systems. (7) We finally present our fully-developed supporting tools: the cloud component management system CCMS, and the Registry utility. To respond to the challenges posed by HDEs, and to maintain expected software quality at the user endpoint, we think we need to pass a ¿paradigm shift¿ from the way software is designed and implemented currently to our new vision that this dissertation is devoted to. This is a paradigm shift from distribution transparency to localization acknowledgment being the first class concern. The contribution in this thesis has several faces as explained above, but still, these faces are cohesive. Each of these faces form a partial contribution, however, this partial contribution does not mean anything if isolated from the overall proposal. Moreover, the merit of the overall proposal can not be grasped by reading one partial contribution. The merit of the proposal is evident only if all parts of this work are cohesively organized. Finally, we claim that our proposal spans the entire software development process for HDEs, from requirements to deployment and runtime management.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Cloud computing offers resources to reduce the computational costs in the institutions that uses hardware and software resources through virtualization, in addition the delivery of software as a service. There are mechanisms for automated software deployment in cloud providers, however it requires encoding or extensive knowledge for developer on the cloud provider specific technology, particularly the various requirements reconstruction, because cloud environments have their own software architectures. In this research was presented a model-based approach to automatic software deployment in the cloud environment. We presented a brief review of literature, with existing proposals for automated software deployment in cloud. In analyzed solutions, we found five that presents deployment mechanisms are script or programming language based, two proposals used manual mechanisms and two proposals applied the model-based approach to software deployment in the cloud, however still strongly linked to manual aspects and complex modeling, because it requires the developer to understand the cloud provider architecture. This research presents a new solution with detailed architecture, use cases, data flow and conceptual view of a model-based approach to automatic software deployment in the cloud. In this research was also conducted an experiment, where the solution presented positive impacts in maintainability, learn-ability and reduction of developer´s workload to deploy software services in the cloud, using UML deployment diagrams as input. / A computação em nuvem oferece recursos para reduzir os custos computacionais nas instituições que utilizam recursos de hardware e software através da virtualização, além da entrega de software como serviço. Existem mecanismos automáticos para implantação de software em provedores de nuvem, no entanto, demandam codificação ou requerem conhecimento aprofundado do desenvolvedor acerca da tecnologia específica do provedor de nuvem, sobretudo da reconstrução de vários requisitos, já que ambientes em nuvem possuem arquiteturas de software próprias. Nesta pesquisa foi apresentada uma abordagem baseada em modelos para implantação automática de software no ambiente em nuvem. Foi apresentada uma breve revisão da literatura sobre as propostas existentes para implantação automática de software na nuvem. Foram analisadas as propostas, onde cinco mecanismos de implantação baseiam-se em script ou linguagem de programação, duas propostas utilizaram em mecanismos manuais e duas propostas aplicaram uma abordagem baseada em modelos para implantação de software na nuvem, no entanto ainda fortemente ligadas a aspectos manuais e de modelagem complexa, uma vez que requer do desenvolvedor a compreensão da arquitetura do provedor de nuvem. Esta investigação apresenta uma nova solução com arquitetura detalhada, casos de uso, fluxo de dados e visão conceitual de uma abordagem dirigida a modelos para implantação de software automática na nuvem. Nesta pesquisa também foi realizado um experimento onde a solução apresentou impactos positivos em manutenibilidade, apreensibilidade e na redução na carga de trabalho do desenvolvedor para implantar serviços de software na nuvem por meio de diagramas de implantação UML como entrada.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Cloud computing offers resources to reduce the computational costs in the institutions that uses hardware and software resources through virtualization, in addition the delivery of software as a service. There are mechanisms for automated software deployment in cloud providers, however it requires encoding or extensive knowledge for developer on the cloud provider specific technology, particularly the various requirements reconstruction, because cloud environments have their own software architectures. In this research was presented a model-based approach to automatic software deployment in the cloud environment. We presented a brief review of literature, with existing proposals for automated software deployment in cloud. In analyzed solutions, we found five that presents deployment mechanisms are script or programming language based, two proposals used manual mechanisms and two proposals applied the model-based approach to software deployment in the cloud, however still strongly linked to manual aspects and complex modeling, because it requires the developer to understand the cloud provider architecture. This research presents a new solution with detailed architecture, use cases, data flow and conceptual view of a model-based approach to automatic software deployment in the cloud. In this research was also conducted an experiment, where the solution presented positive impacts in maintainability, learn-ability and reduction of developer´s workload to deploy software services in the cloud, using UML deployment diagrams as input. / A computação em nuvem oferece recursos para reduzir os custos computacionais nas instituições que utilizam recursos de hardware e software através da virtualização, além da entrega de software como serviço. Existem mecanismos automáticos para implantação de software em provedores de nuvem, no entanto, demandam codificação ou requerem conhecimento aprofundado do desenvolvedor acerca da tecnologia específica do provedor de nuvem, sobretudo da reconstrução de vários requisitos, já que ambientes em nuvem possuem arquiteturas de software próprias. Nesta pesquisa foi apresentada uma abordagem baseada em modelos para implantação automática de software no ambiente em nuvem. Foi apresentada uma breve revisão da literatura sobre as propostas existentes para implantação automática de software na nuvem. Foram analisadas as propostas, onde cinco mecanismos de implantação baseiam-se em script ou linguagem de programação, duas propostas utilizaram em mecanismos manuais e duas propostas aplicaram uma abordagem baseada em modelos para implantação de software na nuvem, no entanto ainda fortemente ligadas a aspectos manuais e de modelagem complexa, uma vez que requer do desenvolvedor a compreensão da arquitetura do provedor de nuvem. Esta investigação apresenta uma nova solução com arquitetura detalhada, casos de uso, fluxo de dados e visão conceitual de uma abordagem dirigida a modelos para implantação de software automática na nuvem. Nesta pesquisa também foi realizado um experimento onde a solução apresentou impactos positivos em manutenibilidade, apreensibilidade e na redução na carga de trabalho do desenvolvedor para implantar serviços de software na nuvem por meio de diagramas de implantação UML como entrada.