SCOPE
The 4th International Conference on Cloud Computing and Services Science, CLOSER 2014, focuses on the emerging area of Cloud Computing, inspired by some latest advances that concern the infrastructure, operations, and available services through the global network. Further, the conference considers as essential the link to Services Science, acknowledging the service-orientation in most current IT-driven collaborations. The conference is nevertheless not about the union of these two (already broad) fields, but about Cloud Computing where we are also interested in how Services Science can provide theory, methods and techniques to design, analyze, manage, market and study various aspects of Cloud Computing.

Emerging Enterprise Technologies are profoundly changing the way we think of IT - from economics and efficiency to process and usage models. Many organizations look to the “externalized” IT systems and services as a potential cost-savings advantage by moving internally hosted IT services to external providers. Other organizations view the “external” IT as potential disaster recovery systems or as on-demand capacity to boost business continuity and customer service levels. We need to take a closer look, discerning what emerging enterprise technologies are and how they can catalyze creativity and produce a competitive advantage. There is hence a new wave of interest in 'Externalization of IT' - anything as a service (including Software as a Service, Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service), On Demand delivery, outsourcing, and so on. This emerging facilitation and way of utilizing services through IT is what we are referring to as Cloud Computing.

The four perspectives in which we are addressing the area of Cloud Computing in this conference are: (i) Fundamentals of Cloud Computing; (ii) Services Science foundation for Cloud Computing; (iii) Cloud Computing platforms and applications; (iv) Cloud Computing enabling technology.

CONFERENCE AREAS
Each of these topic areas is expanded below but the sub-topics list is not exhaustive. Papers may address one or more of the listed sub-topics, although authors should not feel limited by them. Unlisted but related sub-topics are also acceptable, provided they fit in one of the following main topic areas:

1. CLOUD COMPUTING FUNDAMENTALS
2. SERVICES SCIENCE FOUNDATION FOR CLOUD COMPUTING
3. CLOUD COMPUTING PLATFORMS AND APPLICATIONS
4. CLOUD COMPUTING ENABLING TECHNOLOGY
5. MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING AND SERVICES


AREA 1: CLOUD COMPUTING FUNDAMENTALS

Cloud Computing Architecture
Cloud Standards
Cloud Application Portability
Cloud Interoperability
Cloud Delivery Models
Cloud Deployment Models: Public/Private/Hybrid Cloud
Cloud Risk, Challenges, and Governance
Cloud Education
QoS for applications on clouds


AREA 2: SERVICES SCIENCE FOUNDATION FOR CLOUD COMPUTING

Semantic Web Technologies
Web Services
Service-Oriented Architecture
Internet of Services
Service Modeling and Specification
Service Discovery
Service Monitoring and Control
Business Services Realized by IT Services
Service Innovation
Service Strategy
Service Marketing and Management
Information and Service Economy
Human Beings in Service Systems
Enterprise Architectures and Services
Services Security and Reliability
Business Process Management and Web Services
Model-Driven Web Service Engineering
Industrial Applications of Services Science
Service Composition and Mashups


AREA 3: CLOUD COMPUTING PLATFORMS AND APPLICATIONS

Cloud Middleware Frameworks
Cloud Application Architectures
Cloud Application Scalability and Availability
COTS and Cloud
Cloudsourcing
Cloud Applications Performance and Monitoring
Development Methods for Cloud Applications
Outsourced Production Environments
Collective Intelligence/Crowd Computing
Context-aware Computing and Peer to Peer Computing
XaaS
Big Data Cloud Services
Cloud Economics


AREA 4: CLOUD COMPUTING ENABLING TECHNOLOGY

Troubleshooting and Best Practices
Monitoring of Services, Quality of Service, Service Level Agreements
Performance Development and Management
Cloud Ilities (Scalability, Availability,Reliability)
Virtualization Technologies
Disaster Recovery
Cloud Optimization and Automation
Cloud Abstraction of Composite IT Systems
Metering, pricing, and software licensing
Security, Privacy, and Compliance Management
Cloud Workload Profiling and Deployment Control
Cloud Composition, Federation, Bridging, and Bursting
Cloud Resource Virtualization and Composition
High Performance Cloud Computing
Programming Models, Systems, and Fault-Tolerant Computing


AREA 5: MOBILE CLOUD COMPUTING AND SERVICES

Mobile cloud computing models, infrastructures, and approaches
Mobile-aware networking and protocols
Mobile multimedia content delivery, transferring, and migration
Location-based mobile cloud applications and services
Engineering Mobile Clouds and Mobile-Based Systems
Smart mobile computing SaaS on clouds
Quality of service on mobile clouds and applications
Mobile Reliability, Availability, Scalability and Performance
Pervasive Environments
Cloud-based mobile media systems and social networks
Security Issues in Mobile Systems Software and Hardware
Mobile Clouds for E-Commerce Services
KEYNOTE SPEAKERS
CLOSER 2014 will have several invited keynote speakers, who are internationally recognized experts in their areas. Their names are not yet confirmed.

PAPER SUBMISSION
Authors should submit a paper in English, carefully checked for correct grammar and spelling, addressing one or several of the conference areas or topics. Each paper should clearly indicate the nature of its technical/scientific contribution, and the problems, domains or environments to which it is applicable. To facilitate the double-blind paper evaluation method, authors are kindly requested to produce and provide the paper WITHOUT any reference to any of the authors, including the authors’ personal details, the acknowledgments section of the paper and any other reference that may disclose the authors’ identity.

Only original papers should be submitted. Authors are advised to read INSTICC's ethical norms regarding plagiarism and self-plagiarism thoroughly before submitting and must make sure that their submissions do not substantially overlap work which has been published elsewhere or simultaneously submitted to a journal or another conference with proceedings. Papers that contain any form of plagiarism will be rejected without reviews.

Authors can submit their work in the form of a Regular Paper, representing completed and validated research, or as a Position Paper, portraying a short report of work in progress or an arguable opinion about an issue discussing ideas, facts, situations, methods, procedures or results of scientific research focused on one of the conference topic areas. All papers must be submitted through the online submission platform PRIMORIS and should follow the instructions and templates that can be found under Guidelines and Templates. After the paper submission has been successfully completed, authors will receive an automatic confirmation e-mail.

PUBLICATIONS
All accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings, under an ISBN reference, on paper and on CD-ROM support.
All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library (http://www.scitepress.org/DigitalLibrary/).
SCITEPRESS is member of CrossRef (http://www.crossref.org/).
All papers presented at the conference venue will be available at the SCITEPRESS Digital Library.
The proceedings will be submitted for indexation by Thomson Reuters Conference Proceedings Citation Index (ISI), INSPEC, DBLP and EI (Elsevier Index).

IMPORTANT DATES
Conference Date: 3 - 5 April, 2014
Regular Papers
Paper Submission: October 2, 2013
Authors Notification: January 16, 2014
Camera Ready and Registration: January 30, 2014

Position Papers
Paper Submission: December 12, 2013
Authors Notification: January 28, 2014
Camera Ready and Registration: February 7, 2014

SECRETARIAT
CLOSER Secretariat
Address: Av. D. Manuel I, 27A, 2º esq.
2910-595 Setubal - Portugal
Tel.: +351 265 520 184
Fax: +44 203 014 8813
e-mail: closer.secretariat@scitevents.org
Web: http://closer.scitevents.org

VENUE

The conference will be held at the Barceló Sants Hotel Barcelona, Spain.
The new Barceló Sants hotel is now taking off. Get ready to enjoy a unique trip in our completely renovated Orbital Rooms.
Located just on top of “Sants Estation” (now Sants Orbital Station), it has direct access to AVE (high speed train), metro and train network.

CONFERENCE CHAIR
Available soon.

PROGRAM CHAIR
Available soon.
PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Available soon.