Enabling End-to-End Orchestration of Multi-Cloud Applications

Abstract

The orchestration of application components across heterogeneous cloud providers is a problem that has been tackled using various approaches, some of which led to the creation of cloud orchestration and management standards, such as TOSCA and CAMP. Standardization is a definitive method of providing an end-to-end solution capable of defining, deploying, and managing applications and their components across heterogeneous cloud providers. TOSCA and CAMP, however, perform different functions with regard to cloud applications. TOSCA is focused primarily on topology modeling and orchestration, whereas CAMP is focused on deployment and management of applications. This paper presents a novel solution that not only involves the combination of the emerging standards TOSCA and CAMP, but also introduces extensions to CAMP to allow for multi-cloud application orchestration through the use of declarative policies. Extensions to the CAMP platform are also made, which brings the standards closer together to enable a seamless integration. Our proposal provides an end-to-end cloud orchestration solution that supports a cloud application modeling and deployment process, allowing a cloud application to span and be deployed over multiple clouds. The feasibility and the benefit of our approach are demonstrated in our validation study.