Search results

Major public cloud providers, such as AWS, Azure or Google, offer seamless experiences for infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). With the emergence of the public cloud's vast usage, administrators must be able to have a reliable method to provide the seamless experience that a public cloud offers on a smaller scale, such as a private cloud. When a smaller deployment or a private cloud is needed, OpenStack can meet the goals without increasing cost or sacrificing data control.

To demonstrate these enablement goals of resiliency and elasticity in IaaS and PaaS, the authors design a private distributed system cloud platform using OpenStack and its core services of Nova, Swift, Cinder, Neutron, Keystone, Horizon and Glance on a five-node deployment.

Through the demonstration of dynamically adding an IaaS node, pushing the deployment to its physical and logical limits, and eventually crashing the deployment, this paper shows how the PackStack utility facilitates the provisioning of an elastic and resilient OpenStack-based IaaS platform that can be used in production if the deployment is kept within designated boundaries.

The authors adopt the multinode-capable PackStack utility in favor of an all-in-one OpenStack build for a true demonstration of resiliency, elasticity and scalability in a small-scale IaaS. An all-in-one deployment is generally used for proof-of-concept deployments and is not easily scaled in production across multiple nodes. The authors demonstrate that combining PackStack with the multi-node design is suitable for smaller-scale production IaaS and PaaS deployments.

Cloud computing originated in central data centers that are connected to the backbone of the Internet. The network transport to and from a distant data center incurs long latencies that hinder modern low-latency applications. In order to flexibly support the computing demands of users, cloud computing is evolving toward a continuum of cloud computing resources that are distributed between the end users and a distant data center. The purpose of this review paper is to concisely summarize the state-of-the-art in the evolving cloud computing field and to outline research imperatives.

The authors identify two main dimensions (or axes) of development of cloud computing: the trend toward flexibility of scaling computing resources, which the authors denote as Flex-Cloud, and the trend toward ubiquitous cloud computing, which the authors denote as Ubi-Cloud. Along these two axes of Flex-Cloud and Ubi-Cloud, the authors review the existing research and development and identify pressing open problems.

The authors find that extensive research and development efforts have addressed some Ubi-Cloud and Flex-Cloud challenges resulting in exciting advances to date. However, a wide array of research challenges remains open, thus providing a fertile field for future research and development.

This review paper is the first to define the concept of the Ubi-Flex-Cloud as the two-dimensional research and design space for cloud computing research and development. The Ubi-Flex-Cloud concept can serve as a foundation and reference framework for planning and positioning future cloud computing research and development efforts.

Ample evidence suggests that firm innovativeness is important for firm competitiveness. Despite the significance of the CEO for firm outcomes in general, the role of the CEO in firm innovativeness remains unclear. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the impact of two CEO characteristics – organizational identification and risk propensity – on firm innovativeness. The authors also adopt a contingency view to examine the moderating role of organizational size.

Using data from 159 information technology firms based in India, the authors hypothesize that CEO organizational identification and risk propensity will have a positive effect on firm innovativeness. The authors further hypothesize that smaller organizations will benefit more from the positive effects of CEO organizational identification and CEO risk propensity.

The empirical findings indicate that CEO organizational identification and risk propensity positively influence firm innovativeness. Also positive effects of CEO organizational identification and CEO risk propensity are more in smaller organizations.

This study highlights the role of CEO characteristics in the pursuit of firm innovativeness. Significantly, the study shows that both CEO organizational identification and risk propensity can enhance firm innovativeness. However, their effectiveness is contingent on organizational size.

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of top management team (TMT) processes on firm innovativeness. Firm innovativeness is critical for organizational survival. Yet, the authors’ understanding about the key determinants of firm innovativeness is limited, particularly concerning the role of TMT dynamics. Drawing on upper echelon’s theory, the authors develop and test hypotheses concerning the influence of two TMT processes, namely affective conflict and cognitive conflict, on firm innovativeness. They also explore the boundary conditions of TMT dynamics by examining the moderating effect of environmental uncertainty on the relationship between TMT conflict (affective and cognitive conflict) and firm innovativeness.

The authors collected survey-based data from TMT members in 171 information technology organizations based in India. They used multiple regression analyses to test the study hypotheses.

The empirical findings indicate that TMT affective conflict is negatively associated with firm innovativeness, whereas TMT cognitive conflict has a negative curvilinear relationship with it. Both relationships are stronger in firms operating in environments characterized by a high degree of uncertainty.

This study highlights the role of TMT conflict in the pursuit of firm innovativeness. Significantly, the study shows that both TMT affective conflict and cognitive conflict can affect firm innovativeness. However, their effectiveness is contingent on environmental uncertainty. This contributes to the firm innovation literature by clarifying how specific types of TMT conflict influence firm innovativeness in different environmental conditions.

Innovation competence has become an essential requirement for technology-based organizations to survive in the new economy. Commitment to long-term objectives and learning are considered as indispensable for building innovation competence. Communication networks play a crucial role in both these aspects. In this context management faces the question of how the characteristics as well as the contents of communication present in the network will influence the innovation competence. In this paper a literature study is done to present an understanding of the relationships between communication networks and innovation competence. The paper proposes that the characteristics of communication (frequency, diversity, and centrality) along with the content of communication (shared vision, shared task knowledge, and shared social knowledge) significantly affect the elements necessary to build technological innovation.

Organizational innovation is critical for firm competitive advantage. Yet, we do not know enough about the relationship between leadership and organizational innovation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of chief executive officer (CEO) transformational and transactional leadership on organizational innovation. The authors examine the moderating role of environmental dynamism.

The authors collected survey-based data from top management team members in 163 companies in services, construction, manufacturing and other industries in the USA. The authors used multiple regression analyses to test the study hypotheses.

The empirical findings indicate that CEO transformational and transactional leadership behaviors positively influence organizational innovation. However, organizations benefit more from transformational leadership in dynamic environments.

This study highlights the role of CEO leadership behavior in the pursuit of organizational innovation. Significantly, the study shows that both transformational and transactional leadership can enhance organizational innovation. However, their effectiveness is contingent on environmental dynamism. This contributes to the firm innovation literature by clarifying how specific types of CEO leadership influence organizational innovation in different environmental conditions.

This volume begins with a literature review of the different approaches to the management of competences in interorganizational relations. In Frédéric Prevot's paper, “The management of competences in the context of interorganizational relations,” the existing literature is structured in a two-dimensional model based on the nature of the relationship (cooperation or competition) and the actions taken on the competences (leveraging or building). Four objectives for the management of competences in the context of interorganizational relationships are thus derived: (1) sharing of competences, (2) protection of competences, (3) creation of competences, and (4) acquisition of competences. Each competence objective then requires specific management approaches to achieve.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Newtonian heating and slip effect on mixed convective flow near a stagnation point in a porous medium with thermal radiation in the presence of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD), heat generation/absorption and chemical reaction.

The governing nonlinear coupled equations are converted into ordinary differential equations by similarity transformation. These equations are solved numerically using a Runge–Kutta–Fehlberg method with shooting technique and analytically using the homotopy analysis method (HAM).

The effects of different parameters on the fluid flow and heat transfer are investigated. It is found that the velocity and temperature profiles increase on an increase in the Biot number. The velocity and concentration profiles increase on decreasing the chemical reaction parameter.

This paper is helpful to the engineers and scientists in the field of thermal and manufacturing engineering.

The two-dimensional boundary layer flow over a vertical plate with slip and convective boundary conditions near the stagnation-point is analysed in the presence of magnetic field, radiation and heat generation/absorption. This paper is helpful to the engineers and scientists in the field of thermal and manufacturing engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the numerical modelling of transient natural convection flow of an incompressible viscous nanofluid past an impulsively started semi-infinite vertical plate with variable surface temperature.

The problem is governed by the coupled non-linear partial differential equations with appropriate boundary conditions. A robust, well-tested, Crank-Nicolson type of implicit finite-difference method, which is unconditionally stable and convergent, is used to solve the governing non-linear set of partial differential equations.

The local and average values of the skin-friction coefficient (viscous drag) and the average Nusselt number (the rate of heat transfer) decreased, while the local Nusselt number increased for all nanofluids, namely, aluminium oxide-water, copper-water, titanium oxide-water and silver-water with an increase in the temperature exponent m. Selecting aluminium oxide as the dispersing nanoparticles leads to the maximum average Nusselt number (the rate of heat transfer), while choosing silver as the dispersing nanoparticles leads to the minimum local Nusselt number compared to the other nanofluids for all values of the temperature exponent m. Also, choosing silver as the dispersing nanoparticles leads to the minimum skin-friction coefficient (viscous drag), while selecting aluminium oxide as the dispersing nanoparticles leads to the maximum skin-friction coefficient (viscous drag) for all values of the temperature exponent m.

The Brinkman model for dynamic viscosity and Maxwell-Garnett model for thermal conductivity are employed. The governing boundary layer equations are written according to The Tiwari-Das nanofluid model. A range of nanofluids containing nanoparticles of aluminium oxide, copper, titanium oxide and silver with nanoparticle volume fraction range less than or equal to 0.04 are considered.

The present simulations are relevant to nanomaterials thermal flow processing in the chemical engineering and metallurgy industries. This study also provides an important benchmark for further simulations of nanofluid dynamic transport phenomena of relevance to materials processing, with alternative computational algorithms (e.g. finite element methods).

This paper is relatively original and illustrates the influence of variable surface temperature on transient natural convection flow of a viscous incompressible nanofluid and heat transfer from an impulsively started semi-infinite vertical plate.