Effort estimation in cloud migration process

One major benefit claimed for cloud computing is cost saving, which stimulates enterprises to migrate their workload to cloud. Cost Models and assessment approaches appear as major tools aiming at better understanding and deciding cloud migration. However, their focuses are on the post-migration cost assessment. How costly a cloud migration process can be is still an open question. Cloud migration is a comprehensive process involving insightful assessment and technique supported tasks, which requires a systematic end-toend view. In this paper, we undertake one of the first attempts to conduct effort estimation in cloud migration. We elaborate the cloud migration process with assessment on the steps. A process-based effort estimation approach is presented to assess the investment of a cloud migration process before it is undertaken, and the case study is discussed to demonstrate the feasibility of the approach. © 2012 IEEE.