One of the main reasons why cloud computing has gained
so much popularity is due to its ease of use and its ability
to scale computing resources on demand. As a result, users
can now rent computing nodes on large commercial clusters
through several vendors, such as Amazon and rackspace.
However, despite the attention paid by Cloud providers,
performance unpredictability is a major issue in Cloud com-
puting for (1) database researchers performing wall clock ex-
periments, and (2) database applications providing service-
level agreements. In this paper, we carry out a study of the
Provided certain obstacles are overcome, we believe Cloud Computing has the potential to transform a large part of the IT industry, making software even more attractive as a service and shaping the way IT hardware is designed and purchased. Developers with innovative ideas for new interactive Internet services no longer require the large capital outlays in hardware to deploy their service or the human expense to operate it.