Interoperability between cloud services is one of the main barriers to the adoption of the cloud computing paradigm. The middleware presented in this paper addresses this issue.

The authors have designed a message exchange tool based on a specific ontology that allows for the translation of general terms into the specific terms of a cloud provider. Their tool, intercloud message exchange (ICME), follows the concepts of a data distribution service based on publish-subscribe messaging. It is combined with an informational model designed to host the cloud resource description ontology. Two enlightening use cases demonstrate virtual machine migration between clouds.

This technical solution will be of interest to scientists and developers involved in cloud computing, as well those interested in a use case involving semantics.