Trans-cloud applications consist of multiple interacting components deployed across different cloud providers and at different service layers (IaaS and PaaS). In such complex deployment scenarios, fault handling and recovery need to deal with heterogeneous cloud offerings and to take into account inter-component dependencies. We propose a methodology for self-healing trans-cloud applications from failures occurring in application components or in the cloud services hosting them, both during deployment and while they are being operated. The proposed methodology enables reducing the time application components rely on faulted services, hence residing in “unstable” states where they can suddenly fail in cascade or exhibit erroneous behaviour. We also present an open-source prototype illustrating the feasibility of our proposal, which we have exploited to carry out an extensive evaluation based on controlled experiments and monkey testing.

The development of applications independent of the cloud providers where they are going to be deployed is still an open issue. In fact, cloud agnostic software development presents important challenges to be solved. One of these issues is the runtime migration of components. Even more difficult is dealing with the interoperability issues when the migration also implies a change of provider or service level. This paper presents a solution for the component-wise migration of cloud applications. The migration is performed component-wise in the sense that each component of the application to be migrated, which may be deployed on a specific service on a specific provider, may individually be moved to a different one. Our solution relies on the three key ingredients of the trans-cloud approach, where the CAMP and TOSCA standards play a central role: A CAMP-based unified API, TOSCA-based agnostic topology descriptions, and mechanisms for the independent specification of target service locations. The effort and the time required for restoring the activity of applications are used as metrics to evaluate the performance of the proposed migration orchestrator. Although the time required for the migration operation is directly related to the topology of the application, the affected components, and their previous and target locations, the downtimes are significantly reduced. Moreover, thanks to the abstraction level at which it operates and the automation provided, the effort needed from the user for a migration operation is almost zero. We present an implementation of our proposed solution and illustrate it with a case study and experimental results.

The fault handling and recovery from runtime failures of cloud applications should be done by taking into account the inter-dependencies occurring among their components, and by dealing with the diverse and heterogeneous cloud offerings used to host them. The latter is even harder in trans-cloud scenarios, i.e., when application components are possibly deployed on different platforms and at different service levels (IaaS or PaaS). In this paper, we propose a methodology to support the automated management and recovery of (un) foreseen failures in a trans-cloud application, which takes into account all interdependencies occurring among its components. We then present a prototype implementation of our proposal, consisting of an orchestrator that exploits a management framework for trans-cloud application deployments, together with management protocols for the automated planning of the fault-aware administration of applications.

The diversity in the way cloud providers offer their services, give their SLAs, present their QoS, or support different technologies, makes very difficult the portability and interoperability of cloud applications, and favours the well-known vendor lock-in problem. We propose a model to describe cloud applications and the required resources in an agnostic, and providers-and resources-independent way, in which individual application modules, and entire applications, may be re-deployed using different services without modification. To support this model, and after the proposal of a variety of cross-cloud application management tools by different authors, we propose going one step further in the unification of cloud services with a management approach in which IaaS and PaaS services are integrated into a unified interface. We provide support for deploying applications whose components are distributed on different cloud providers, indistinctly using IaaS and PaaS services.

AbstractHighlightsA novel notion of trans-cloud management of applications.An associated methodology for the description and operation of cloud applications.A proposal for trans-cloud deployment (for IaaS and PaaS, by different vendors).A provider-agnostic TOSCA-based model to specify the topology of applications.CAMP concepts (Apache Brooklyn) for the deployment and management of such models. The diversity in the way in which different cloud providers offer their services, give their SLAs, present their QoS, or support different technologies complicates the portability and interoperability of cloud applications, and favors vendor lock-in. Trying to solve these issues, we have recently witnessed the proposal of unified APIs for IaaS services, unified APIs for PaaS services, and a variety of cross-cloud application management tools. We go one step further in the unification of cloud services, building on the TOSCA and CAMP standards, with a proposal in which the management of IaaS and PaaS services, possibly offered by different providers, are integrated into a unified interface. The TOSCA standard is used for the definition of portable models describing the topology of cloud applications and the required resources in an agnostic, providers-and-resources-independent way. Based on the CAMP standard, we abstract from the particularities of specific providers. Indeed, to change the service on which any of the modules of an application is to be deployed, whether it be IaaS or PaaS, we just need to change its target location by picking from the catalog of supported locations. We provide insights into our implementation on Apache Brooklyn, present a non-trivial case study that illustrates our approach, and show some experimental results.

The trans-cloud approach has recently been proposed to simplify the development and operation of cloud applications, and to minimize the lock-in problem. The three key ingredients of the trans-cloud approach are: agnostic topology descriptions, a unified API, and mechanisms for the independent specification of providers’ services. We build on the trans-cloud mechanisms to propose a solution for the migration of stateless cloud components at runtime. In the context of our trans-cloud tool, we propose an algorithm for the migration of cloud applications’ components between different providers, possibly changing their service levels between IaaS and PaaS. We present an implementation of our proposed solution, and illustrate it with a case study and experimental results.

The diversity in the way in which different cloud providers offer their services, give their SLAs, present their QoS, or support different technologies complicates the portability and interoperability of cloud applications, and favors vendor lock-in. Trying to solve these issues, we have recently witnessed the proposal of unified APIs for IaaS services, unified APIs for PaaS services, and a variety of cross-cloud application management tools. We go one step further in the unification of cloud services, building on the TOSCA and CAMP standards, with a proposal in which the management of IaaS and PaaS services, possibly offered by different providers, are integrated into a unified interface. The TOSCA standard is used for the definition of portable models describing the topology of cloud applications and the required resources in an agnostic, providers-and-resources-independent way. Based on the CAMP standard, we abstract from the particularities of specific providers. Indeed, to change the service on which any of the modules of an application is to be deployed, whether it be IaaS or PaaS, we just need to change its target location by picking from the catalog of supported locations. We provide insights into our implementation on Apache Brooklyn, present a non-trivial case study that illustrates our approach, and show some experimental results. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We propose an algorithm for the migration of cloud applications' components between different providers, possibly changing their service level between IaaS and PaaS. Our solution relies on three of the key ingredients of the trans-cloud approach: a unified API, agnostic topology descriptions, and mechanisms for the independent specification of providers. We show how our approach allows us to overcome some of the current interoperability and portability issues of cloud environments to propose a solution for migration, present an implementation of our proposed solution, and illustrate it with a case study and experimental results.

SeaClouds is a European FP7 research project, whose goal is to provide a novel open source platform to enable application developers to configure, deploy, and manage complex applications across multiple heterogeneous IaaS and PaaS clouds in an efficient and adaptive way.

Cloud Computing providers offer diverse services and capabilities, which can be used by end-users to compose heterogeneous contexts of multiple cloud platforms to deploy their applications, in accordance with the best offered capabilities. However, this is an ideal scenario, since cloud platforms are being conducted in an isolated way by presenting interoperability and portability restrictions. Each provider defines its own API, non-functional requirements, QoS, add-ons, etc., and developers are often locked-in a concrete cloud environment, hampering the integration of heterogeneous provider services to achieve cross-deployment. This work presents an approach to deploy cross-cloud applications by using standardisation efforts of design, management and deployment of cloud applications. Specifically, using mechanisms specified by the TOSCA and CAMP standards, we propose a methodology to describe the topology and distribution of modules of a cloud application and to deploy the inter-connected modules over heterogeneous clouds. We present our prototype TOMAT, which supports the automatic distribution of cloud applications over multiple providers.

The diversity in the way different cloud providers offer their services, give their SLAs, present their QoS, support different technologies, etc., complicates the portability and interoperability of cloud applications, and favors vendor lockin. Standards like TOSCA, and tools supporting them, have come to help in the provider-independent description of cloud applications. After the variety of proposed cross-cloud application management tools, we propose going one step further in the unification of cloud services with a deployment tool in which IaaS and PaaS services are integrated into a unified interface. We provide support for applications whose components are to be deployed on different providers, indistinctly using IaaS and PaaS services. The TOSCA standard is used to define a portable model describing the topology of the cloud applications and the required resources in an agnostic, and providers- and resources-independent way. We include in this paper some highlights on our implementation on Apache Brooklyn and present a non-trivial example that illustrates our approach.

We present the open reference architecture of the SeaClouds solution. It aims at enabling a seamless adaptive multi-cloud management of complex applications by supporting the distribution, monitoring and reconfiguration of app modules over heterogeneous cloud providers.

How to deploy and manage, in an efficient and adaptive way, complex applications across multiple heterogeneous cloud platforms is one of the problems that have emerged with the cloud revolution. In this paper we present context, motivations and objectives of the EU research project SeaClouds, which aims at enabling a seamless adaptive multi-cloud management of complex applications by supporting the distribution, monitoring and migration of application modules over multiple heterogeneous cloud platforms. After positioning SeaClouds with respect to related cloud initiatives, we present the SeaClouds architecture and discuss some of its aspect, such as the use of the OASIS standard TOSCA and the compatibility with the OASIS CAMP initiative.

Cloud Computing platforms offer diverse services and capabilities with own features. Hence, the provider services could be used by end users to compose a heterogeneous context of multiple cloud platforms in order to deploy their cloud applications made up of a set of modules, according to the best capabilities of the cloud providers. However, this is an ideal scenario, since the cloud platforms are being conducted in an isolated way by presenting many interoperability and portability restrictions, which complicate the integration of diverse provider services to achieve an heterogeneous deployment of multi-cloud applications. In this ongoing work, we present an approach based on model transformation to deploy multi-cloud applications by reusing standardization efforts related to the management and deployment of cloud applications. Specifically, using mechanisms specified by both standards, TOSCA and CAMP, we propose a methodology to describe the topology and distribution of modules of a cloud application and to deploy the interconnected modules over heterogeneous clouds. We illustrate our idea using a running example.

SeaClouds is a European FP7 research project, whose goal is to develop a novel open solution to provide developers with the capabilities to design, configure, deploy, and manage complex applications across multiple heterogeneous clouds in an efficient and adaptive way. 1 General data of the project Name Seamless adaptive multi-cloud management of service-based applications

The adaptive management of complex applications deployed across multiple heterogeneous PaaS platforms is one of the problems that have emerged with the cloud revolution. The ongoing EU research project SeaClouds aims at providing seamless adaptive multi-cloud management of complex applications by supporting the distribution, monitoring and migration of application modules over multiple heterogeneous PaaS platforms. In this paper we present context, motivations and objectives of SeaClouds, its relation with other cloud initiatives, and its initial architecture.