A Systematic Mapping Study on Fault Management in Cloud Computing

Background: The large computational infrastructures required to provide the on-demand services that most users are now used to are more prone to failures than any single computational device. Thus, fault management is a essential activity in the realization of the cloud computing model. Aims: This work aims at identifying well-explored topics on fault management in cloud computing as well as pin-pointing gaps in the scientific literature that may represent opportunities for further research and development in this area. Method: We conducted a systematic mapping study to collect, filter and classify scientific works in this area. The 4535 scientific papers found on major search engines were filtered and the remaining 166 papers were classified according to a taxonomy described in this work. Results: We found that IaaS is most explored in the selected studies. The main dependability functions explored were Tolerance and Removal, and the attributes were Reliability and Availability. Most papers had been classified by research type as Solution Proposal. Conclusion: This work summarizes and classifies the research effort conducted on fault management in cloud computing, providing a good starting point for further research in this area.