Cross-Cluster Networking to Support Extended Reality Services

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel cross-cluster networking solution for XR services using Cluster API and Liqo, addressing Kubernetes limitations for multi-cloud deployments, and evaluates its effectiveness through experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a new multi-cluster connectivity approach tailored for XR services, combining open source frameworks to overcome existing limitations.

Findings

Effective multi-cluster connectivity demonstrated in experiments

Enhanced support for XR service requirements in multi-cloud environments

First solution aligned with XR service demands for cross-cluster deployment

Abstract

Extented Reality (XR) refers to a class of contemporary services that are intertwined with a plethora of rather demanding Quality of Service (QoS) and functional requirements. Despite Kubernetes being the de-facto standard in terms of deploying and managing contemporary containerized microservices, it lacks adequate support for cross-cluster networking, hindering service-to-service communication across diverse cloud domains. Although there are tools that may be leveraged alongside Kubernetes in order to establish multi-cluster deployments, each one of them comes with its drawbacks and limitations. The purpose of this article is to explore the various potential technologies that may facilitate multi-cluster deployments and to propose how they may be leveraged to provide a cross-cluster connectivity solution that caters to the intricacies of XR services. The proposed solution is based on the use of two open source frameworks, namely Cluster API for multi-cluster management, and Liqo for multi-cluster interconnectivity. The efficiency of this approach is evaluated in the context of two experiments. This work is the first attempt at proposing a solution for supporting multi-cluster deployments in a manner that is aligned with the requirements of XR services