Configuration management in the distributed cloud

TL;DR

This paper presents a configuration management subsystem designed for a distributed cloud platform, addressing the need for dynamic configuration control in latency- and privacy-sensitive applications.

Contribution

It introduces a novel configuration management solution that spans cloud and distributed cloud layers, supporting versioning, selective dissemination, and namespace isolation.

Findings

Demonstrates feasibility of distributed cloud configuration management

Supports configuration versioning and selective updates

Provides logical isolation via namespaces

Abstract

Owing to their cost-effectiveness and flexibility, cloud services have been the default choice for the deployment of innumerable software systems over the years. However, novel paradigms are beginning to emerge, as the cloud can't meet the requirements of increasingly many latency- and privacy-sensitive applications. The distributed cloud model, being one of the attempts to overcome these challenges, places a distributed cloud layer between device and cloud layers, intending to bring resources closer to data sources. As application code should be kept separate from its configuration, especially in highly dynamic cloud environments, there is a need to incorporate configuration primitives in future distributed cloud platforms. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a configuration management subsystem for an open-source distributed cloud platform. Our solution spreads across the cloud and distributed cloud layers and supports configuration versioning, selective dissemination to nodes in the distributed cloud layer, and logical isolation via namespaces. Our work serves as a demonstration of the feasibility and usability of the new cloud-extending models and provides valuable insight into one of the possible implementations.