Standardization in the context of cloud computing is a key factor as it can enable interoperability and portability, an answer to the high profiled risk of vendor lock-in that has been flagged as a substantial barrier to adoption. One of the main features of SeaClouds is that its based on vendor-driven standards. The relationship of the project with the cloud standards like OASIS CAMP and TOSCA is important not only from the purely technical point of view, but also for the impact and sustainability strategy of the project.
OASIS is especially relevant for us because it represents a direct access channel to a marketplace formed by public and private sector technology leaders, users and influencers, counting more than 5.000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in more than 65 countries, becoming an important vehicle for raising awareness about SeaClouds, generating impact and fostering its adoption. For that reason, SeaClouds is present on both CAMP and TOSCA TC, whether this is through one of its partners or as SeaClouds itself.
Special focus in TOSCA
TOSCA (Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications) describes how an application should be deployed. In its original form it specifies an XML syntax describing nodes, services, and relationships, along with the type definitions and implementation details.
SeaClouds is using the suitability of TOSCA YAML to represent different models used along the framework. In particular we are using TOSCA YAML for representing:
- The topology of the different modules of a multi-cloud application and their requirements at both module and application level. The resulting model is called Abstract Application Model (AAM).
- Cloud offerings (for both PaaS and IaaS) from service providers with information regarding their technical characteristics and QoS information.
- An intermediate deployment plan where all the modules of the application are instantiated by concrete cloud offerings that provide the functionality required, meeting the technical and QoS requirements. The resulting model is called Abstract Deployment Plan (ADP).
- A final deployment plan which contains all the information required to deploy automatically the application over the selected clouds, with information regarding credentials, SLAs and monitoring rules. The resulting model is called Deployment Application Model (DAM).
The different models allow us to select, deploy and adapt a multi-cloud application through heterogeneous clouds. To parse and operate with the aforementioned models, SeaClouds is using an existing TOSCA YAML parser developed within the ALIEN4Cloud framework.
