A V-model approach for business process requirements elicitation in cloud design

The benefits of cloud computing approaches are well known but designing logical architectures for that context can be difficult. When there are insufficient inputs for a typical (product) approach to requirements elicitation, a process-level perspective is an alternative way for achieving the intended logical design. We present a V-Model based approach to derive logical architectural models to execute in the different cloud layers from a process-level perspective, instead of the traditional product-level perspective. This V-Model approach encompasses the initial definition of the project goals and the process-level perspective of the systems intended logical architecture. The approach application results in the creation of a validated process-level structure and behavior architectural models that create a context for eliciting requirements for a cloud product. Throughout this process, we assess our decisions based on the ARID method to identify process vulnerabilities and evaluate the quality of the derived logical architecture. We introduce a case study where our approach was applied and the resulting logical architectural model is presented.