## 5 Conclusions  
Ecosystems for digitalization require the development of applications (SaaS) often running on heterogeneous resources encompassing infrastructure elements (e.g., sensors), cloud and edge resources and network characteristics. This article has presented research that studies the operationalization of applications in the Cloud Continuum and the corresponding requirements and needs. We have outlined the main challenges through an analysis of the related works, which has served as the basis for the definition of the CloudOps workflow. We have introduced the CloudOps concept and the supporting reference framework which customizes the traditional Ops cycle with activities and supporting techniques addressing the specific needs and challenges of the applications in the Cloud Continuum.  
The novel concept of the CloudOps workflow and reference framework are key findings of the work. They focus on facilitating and speeding up deployment and operation of such ecosystems when they exploit heterogeneous cloud resources. To this end, our proposal provides Ops teams with applications under the Cloud Continuum paradigm with a CloudOps reference framework that allows them to deploy in an optimized configuration environment while simplifying its operation. We also incorporated the concept of self-healing and data portability in the Cloud Continuum with special focus on the portability of stateful components, which is an unsolved issue up to date. We have also explained the main benefits of the solution for the target users and especially for the operators of critical infrastructures-based systems. We included the initial results captured with a first implementation of the MVP (minimum viable product) of the presented framework. This will be extended, including a complete structural and behavioral architectural description of the CloudOps' components described in the paper, and also with the development of the corresponding complete POCs (proof of concepts) that will serve to exhaustively validate the presented approach.  
The next steps will also include the full validation and verification of the applicability of this novel approach in relevant industrial use cases. As we have already advanced, envisioned candidates for testing the solution are mainly applications to manage critical infrastructures (e.g., safety and security, emergency management).  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**CloudOps** & \
\begin{tabular}{c} **Effort** \\ **Manual** \\ **Implementation** \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} **Effort** \\ **CloudOps** \\ **Framework** \\ \end{tabular} & **Savings** \\ \hline Resources discovery and optimization & 0.7 PM & 0 PM & 0.7 PM \\ \hline Deployment & 0.1 PM & 025 PH & 0.1 PM \\ \hline Monitoring (annual projected) & 0.25 PM & 0.25 PH & 0.25 PM \\ \hline Re-adaptation and self-healing & 0.25 PM & 0.01 PM & 0.24 PM \\ \hline
**TOTAL** & **1.3 PM** & **0.01 PM** & **1.3 PM** \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 3: Estimation of the savings provided by the Cloud Ops framework in the e-health scenario.  
**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, investigation, methodology, J.A. and L.O.-E.; writing--original draft, J.A. and L.O.-E.; writing--review and editing, J.A., L.O.-E. and M.H. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
**Funding:** This research was funded by the European project PIACERE (Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, under grant agreement No. 101000162).  
**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.  
**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.