AltoStratus: A Collaboration Network Focused on the New Research Challenges and Opportunities in Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing is a new computing paradigm with the potential to radically change the way Internet applications and services are specified, developed, deployed, executed, managed, operated and evolved. Among the several benefits commonly associated with the adoption of cloud computing are: low initial investment, no need to maintain a physical infrastructure, reduction and greater control of operational costs, and high scalability. However, to fully achieve those benefits there are still a number of challenges to be addressed, especially regarding new solutions aimed at supporting application developers.This paper offers an overview, from the perspective of application development support, of the new research challenges and opportunities being created with the advent of cloud computing. To investigate those challenges is the main goal of the AltoStratus project, a recently created cloud computing research and collaboration network including researchers from eight Brazilian institutions located in three different regions of the country.