Internet is changing from an information space to a dynamic computing
space. Data distribution and remotely accessible software
services, dynamism, and autonomy are prime attributes. Cloud technology
offers a powerful and fast growing approach to the provision
of infrastructure (platform and software services) avoiding the high
costs of owning, operating, and maintaining the computational
infrastructures required for this purpose. Nevertheless, cloud technology
still raises concerns regarding security, privacy, governance,
and compliance of data and software services offered through it.
Concerns are due to the difficulty to verify security properties of
the different types of applications and services available through
cloud technology, the uncertainty of their owners and users about
the security of their services, and the applications based on them,
once they are deployed and offered through a cloud. This work
presents an innovative and novel evolution-oriented, cloud-specific
monitoring model (including an architecture and a language) that
aim at helping cloud application developers to design and monitor
the behavior and functionality of their applications in a cloud
environment.