Conceptualizing Cloud-Platforms as Service Systems

Abstract

Abstract. Cloud-platforms are of increasing importance for the provisioning of computing services because they enable the co-creation of value in an unprecedented way. To fully leverage the benefits it is necessary to know about the sources of value co-creation. The sources for value co-creation in cloud-platforms can be identified by conceptualizing cloud-platforms and analyzing operations on the conceptualization entities. To properly conceptualize cloud-platforms, configurations and configuration items are introduced as new entities. The set of operations on configuration items mirrors the value-co-creation capabilities of cloud-platforms. Thus, by enumerating the operations on configuration items, the value-co-creating capabilities of cloud-platforms can be determined and compared.