Combined "AHP-Block & Entropy" weighting of QoS/QoE criteria for Cloud Services selection with TOPSIS, MOORA and WPM (methodology improvements)

Cloud services (CS) offer virtual, reliable, and flexible hardware and software resources as part of the distant Cloud Computing (CC) concept. The wide variety of products from different providers create the necessity for users to collect data and define criteria for comparing alternatives with reliable evaluation methods and techniques. This paper presents a combined approach based on Analytical Hierarchy Process(AHP), Information Entropy, and Multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDM) techniques. The list of evaluation criteria is decomposed and logically structured in a reasonable number of 2-5 blocks which weights are computed more easily and effectively with a reduced number of AHP comparisons. With the implementation of Information Entropy, the weights of individual criteria within each block are defined objectively on basis of real empiric data for quantitative and quantifiable parameters. This hybrid approach is applied in a case study based on QoS and QoE criteria with popular MCDM evaluation techniques like TOPSIS, WPM, and MOORA.