Applying Constraint Solving to the Management of Distributed Applications

TL;DR

This paper introduces a constraint-based approach for deploying and managing distributed applications, using high-level specifications to automate configuration, detect violations, and automatically reconfigure to maintain desired states.

Contribution

It presents a novel system that employs constraint solving and declarative specifications for automated deployment and management of distributed applications.

Findings

Automates deployment based on high-level requirements.

Automatically detects and rectifies configuration violations.

Uses constraint solving to plan compliant deployments.

Abstract

We present our approach for deploying and managing distributed component-based applications. A Desired State Description (DSD), written in a high-level declarative language, specifies requirements for a distributed application. Our infrastructure accepts a DSD as input, and from it automatically configures and deploys the distributed application. Subsequent violations of the original requirements are detected and, where possible, automatically rectified by reconfiguration and redeployment of the necessary application components. A constraint solving tool is used to plan deployments that meet the application requirements.