Cloud computing promises the flexible delivery of computing services in a pay-as-you-go manner. It allows customers to easily scale their infrastructure and save on the overall cost of operation. However Cloud service offerings can only thrive if customers are satisfied with service performance....

Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, cause tremendous harm each year. In order to reduce casualties and economic losses during the response phase, rescue units must be allocated and scheduled efficiently. As this problem is one of the key issues in emergency response...

Grid technologies and the related concepts of utility computing and cloud computing enable the dynamic sourcing of computer resources and services, thus allowing enterprises to cut down on hardware and software expenses and to focus on key competencies and processes. Resources are shared across...

In the last century, the costs of powering datacenters have increased so quickly, that datacenter power bills now dwarf the IT hardware bills. Many large infrastructure programs have been developed in the past few years to reduce the energy consumption of datacenters, especially with respect to...