Presenting the Cloud as Files and Directories

Managing virtual components requires specialised tools, that differ in their user interfaces, underlying information models and in their dependencies of specific platforms and auxiliary services. This paper proposes the use of the familiar file-system structure as a means of representation for the IT infrastructure, its organisational structure and its physical and virtual components. Thus, by using common file-managing tools, an administrator or user can view and manage the infrastructure as a whole. We study how operations on such a file-system can be employed to trigger management operations on the infrastructure and how the changes to the file-system reflect changes in the infrastructure. A proof-of-concept prototype illustrates this incipient approach.