# Railway Cloud Resource Management as a Service
## 5 Discussion and Conclusions  
The integration of cloud computing in railways enables scalability, cost efficiency, and data integration. Cloud computing provides the ability to scale resources up or down, as needed, which is particularly useful for handling varying workloads during peak and off-peak hours. Railways can reduce infrastructure costs by leveraging cloud services instead of maintaining physical servers. The railway cloud facilitates the integration of data from various sources, such as train operations, maintenance logs, and passenger systems, enabling optimal decision-making. However, successful integration depends on overcoming challenges like data security, complexity, and cost-effectiveness. To provide the required reliability and safety of the cloudified mission-critical railway applications, the cloud management system must operate in real time. Cloud resource fault and performance management are critical aspects of managing cloud computing infrastructure and applications, enabling proactive detection, analysis, and resolution of faults to ensure high availability, reliability, and performance. One of the key railway cloud management challenges is the lack of open APIs and standardization, which is related to the so-called vendor lock-in problem. This paper proposes an approach to the design of open APIs for railway cloud resource fault and performance management. The API design aims to avoid the single-provider-problem and to provide a higher degree of flexibility. The only solution appears to be the open interfaces approach. Open APIs allow for a variety of providers and solutions for different tasks and applications during the whole lifecycle of the system. However, open interfaces are not necessarily providing publicly open access. The proposed approach to railway cloud resource management features the advantages of APIs that make them essential for modern software development, such as simplified integration, scalability, and customization. As the proposed RESTful APIs use HTTP protocol for data transmission, they are programming language-agnostic. They enable the separation of cloud management applications and services, as the API definition of cloud management services defines the means of interaction between the clients and the server. The API specification could evolve in time by improving and extending its functionality. The generic drawbacks of the proposed approach are typical for APIs and come with certain limitations:  
* Security risks: Exposing parts of a railway cloud system can lead to vulnerabilities if not secured properly. * Complexity: APIs can be complex to design and maintain, especially for large systems, such as a railway cloud. * Rate limiting: Many APIs have rate limits, restricting how often they can be called. * Third-party dependency: Relying on railway cloud management APIs can be risky if the cloud provider changes or discontinues a given service. The deployment challenges of API integration, especially within legacy railway systems that are not digitalized, requires further research. Further elaboration of the proposed approach will be related to the development of logical data models. Data models enable unified access to data for different applications. Logical data models offer more detail about the concepts and relationships in the domain under consideration. They indicate data attributes, such as data types and their corresponding lengths, and show the relationships among entities. By implementing a comprehensive cloud fault and performance management strategy, railway operators can ensure that their cloud-based systems are performing optimally, providing a better user experience, and ensuring high reliability, safety, and secure transport services. **Author Contributions:** [PERSON] contributed to the methodology. [PERSON] contributed to the conceptualization. [PERSON] contributed to the formal analysis, verification, and writing. [PERSON] contributed to the writing, review, and editing.