Abstract
This paper presents a novel technique for auto-scaling cloud resources provided by an intermediary enterprise which services requests from a client enterprise. The intermediary enterprise acquires resources on demand from a public cloud. A broker is deployed by the intermediary enterprise to handle client requests with service level agreements (SLAs). A reactive auto-scaling algorithm is activated on request arrival and achieves auto-scaling by acquiring new resources for serving the recently arrived request. The technique ensures that a grade of service specified by the client enterprise is satisfied and is based on a profit analysis for the intermediary enterprise. A resources is released after the last request allocated on the resource has completed execution. The paper demonstrates that the proposed reactive auto-scaling technique can effectively lead to a profit for the intermediary enterprise as well as a reduction of cost for the client enterprise.