## 4. Scope and Applicability  
The presented CloudOps approach along with the CloudOps reference framework will assist (Dev)Ops teams in the operation of new cloud-based services, able to exploit the advantages of multiple and heterogeneous clouds and execution environments. This CloudOps framework leads to provision of a set of advantages for the end users that are summarized in Table 2.  
The application of the CloudOps approach and the supporting reference framework will bring benefits to the software industry operating in complex Cloud-edge environments. Nevertheless, some of the limitations of the traditional centralized Cloud paradigm applies  
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{p{227.6 pt}} \hline \hline
**Expected Benefits for the End Users of the CloudOps Reference Framework** \\ \hline Decrease the time needed to select the most appropriate resources and services in respect to the application needs. Have a catalogue where services can be compared with respect to certain non-functional characteristics through benchmarking. \\ \hline Understand better the characteristics of the application and the computational and storage needs that it might have, as well as its condition (stateful or stateless), needed to define data portability strategies. \\ \hline Be able to select the optimized deployment configuration out of a predefined set of constraints, using optimization algorithms. \\ \hline Be able to optimally execute, orchestrate and deploy complex Cloud Continuum compliant applications, planning, provisioning and preparing both the infrastructure and the application in an automatic way. \\ \hline Gather and process metrics that are able to predict anomalies and detect failures before they happen, so as to ensure the business continuity of the application. \\ \hline Improve the quality of service of the Cloud Continuum compliant applications through the provisioning of self-learning mechanisms that, by the gathering of metrics, are able to predict anomalies, detect failures and trigger self-healing strategies that will allow the reconfiguration and re-deployment, wholly or partially, of the application in an improved configuration. \\ \hline Maintain, preserve and port automatically the data of a stateful component once a redeployment activity is launched. \\ \hline Improve the operation of Cloud Continuum compliant applications, ensuring business continuity, QoS and integrity of the ported data. \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table}
Table 2. Expected benefits for the end users of the CloudOps reference framework.  
Figure 6. Sequence diagram of the proposed Cloud Self-healing workflow through the reference framework.  
in particular to applications that need real time, low latency or those giving support to critical infrastructures.  
In particular, the presented CloudOps approach can be of special relevance when tackling critical infrastructures or business-critical applications where the response time becomes vital and the system must be resilient and able to operate in different scenarios, including lack of connectivity that can be replaced by alternative communication technologies (e.g., new edge nodes). Critical infrastructure is the body of systems, networks and assets that are so essential that their continued operation is required to ensure the security of a given city or region, its economy and the public's health and/or safety. Those critical infrastructures must have a very high availability rate, even higher than five nines. Following on from that, how the operation of critical infrastructures-based systems can benefit from the approach and the reference framework proposed in this article is explained through two specific examples.