How a Consumer Can Measure Elasticity for Cloud Platforms

One major benefit claimed for cloud computing is elasticity: the cost to a consumer of computation can grow or shrink with the work-load. This paper offers improved ways to quantify the elasticity concept, using data available to the consumer. The authors define a measure that reflects the financial penalty to the consumer, from under-provisioning (leading to unacceptable latency or other QoS for requests) or over-provisioning (paying more than necessary for the resources).