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Much effort in the current literature has been put towards methods and implementations to solve Resource Consolidation Management (RCM) problems in the cloud setting. A vast number of proposed solutions appears to be designed for different variants of the RCM problem. This makes the comparison of approaches challenging. We propose a new framework that facilitates mapping RCM solutions to their RCM problem definitions. Our framework allows a solution to be assigned to its RCM problem definition by means of answering a set of questions specific to RCM problems. Our framework can be used to (1) specify problem descriptions, (2) establish optimal solutions and providing theoretical benchmarks, (3) provide a platform allowing formal complexity analysis of RCM problems and (4) facilitate a healthy discussion about the essence of RCM and evaluations of different solutions. We show how our proposed …