Orchestrating Complex Application Architectures in Heterogeneous Clouds

TL;DR

This paper presents an orchestration approach for heterogeneous hybrid clouds using open-source tools and standards, enabling consistent deployment of applications across diverse cloud infrastructures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel orchestration model leveraging OpenStack and TOSCA for heterogeneous cloud environments, demonstrated through real scientific use cases.

Findings

Successful deployment in scientific communities

Consistent application management across clouds

Use of open standards and open-source tools

Abstract

Private cloud infrastructures are now widely deployed and adopted across technology industries and research institutions. Although cloud computing has emerged as a reality, it is now known that a single cloud provider cannot fully satisfy complex user requirements. This has resulted in a growing interest in developing hybrid cloud solutions that bind together distinct and heterogeneous cloud infrastructures. In this paper we describe the orchestration approach for heterogeneous clouds that has been implemented and used within the INDIGO-DataCloud project. This orchestration model uses existing open-source software like OpenStack and leverages the OASIS Topology and Specification for Cloud Applications (TOSCA) open standard as the modeling language. Our approach uses virtual machines and Docker containers in an homogeneous and transparent way providing consistent application deployment for the users. This approach is illustrated by means of two different use cases in different scientific communities, implemented using the INDIGO-DataCloud solutions.