Axe: A Novel Approach for Generic, Flexible, and Comprehensive Monitoring and Adaptation of Cross-Cloud Applications

The vendor lock-in has been a major problem since cloud
computing has evolved as on the one hand side hinders a quick transi
tion between cloud providers and at the other hand side hinders an ap
plication deployment over various clouds at the same time (cross-cloud
deployment). While the rise of cross-cloud deployment tools has to some
extend limited the impact of vendor lock-in and given more freedom
to operators, the fact that applications now are spread out over more
than one cloud platform tremendously complicates matters: Either the
operator has to interact with the interfaces of various cloud providers
or he has to apply custom management tools. This is particularly true
when it comes to the task of auto-scaling an application and adapting it
to load changes. This paper introduces a novel approach to monitoring
and adaptation management that is able to flexibly gather various mon
itoring data from virtual machines distributed across cloud providers,
to dynamically aggregate the data in the cheapest possible manner, and
finally, to evaluate the processed data in order to adapt the application
according to user-defined rules.