In a cloud environment, a cloud broker plays a vital role as an intermediary between cloud customers and providers, resolving issues and facilitating negotiations to balance customer preferences and provider profits. Over the past few years, numerous research articles have either directly or indirectly examined this area. Conducting a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS) on cloud brokerage is highly motivating as it offers a high-level overview of the research landscape, identifying trends, topics, gaps, and patterns within this dynamic and crucial field. This article presents an SMS conducted to categorize existing research, highlight underexplored areas, and map out the evolution and current state of cloud brokerage, providing valuable insights for researchers and practitioners. The SMS identified 91 relevant and reputable search spaces (journals and conferences) and 634 high-quality articles published from 2009 to 2022. Furthermore, we formulated and addressed eight significant research questions to clarify various aspects of the cloud broker field. The extracted information from the selected articles is included in a supplementary file, available online, offering valuable insights for research teams and developers interested in this domain.

中文翻译：

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Cloud Broker：系统映射研究


在云环境中，云代理作为云客户和提供商之间的中介，发挥着至关重要的作用，解决问题并促进谈判，以平衡客户偏好和提供商利润。在过去的几年里，许多研究文章直接或间接地研究了这一领域。对云经纪进行系统映射研究 （SMS） 非常具有激励性，因为它提供了研究前景的高级概述，确定了这个动态和关键领域的趋势、主题、差距和模式。本文介绍了对现有研究进行分类、突出未充分探索的领域并绘制云经纪的演变和现状的 SMS，为研究人员和从业者提供有价值的见解。SMS 确定了 91 个相关且有信誉的检索空间（期刊和会议）和 634 篇从 2009 年到 2022 年发表的高质量文章。此外，我们制定并解决了八个重要的研究问题，以阐明云代理领域的各个方面。从所选文章中提取的信息包含在一个补充文件中，可在线获取，为对该领域感兴趣的研究团队和开发人员提供有价值的见解。