An Overview of the Most Important Reference Architectures for Cloud Computing

In this paper we have presented the main characteristics of the most important reference archi-tectures designed for the cloud computing environment. Specifically, we have introduced the proposed architectures of the worldwide cloud computing companies like Cisco, IBM and VMware and we also had a look at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) reference architecture which is the starting point for all proposed architectures in the field. As one would expect, the provider dependent reference architectures are written is such a way to suit the services and products of the company, while NIST’s architecture is a more general model with more comprehensive architectural details that we highlighted in this article. In the end of the article we draw out some conclusions regarding the existing reference architectures for cloud computing.