Modelling and Analysing Replica- and Fault-aware Management of Horizontally Scalable Applications

Abstract

Modern enterprise applications integrate multiple interdependent software components, whose management must be suitably coordinated. This must be done by taking into account all inter-component dependencies, the faults potentially affecting them, and the fact that each component can be horizontally scaled, i.e.,  that multiple instances of each component can be spawned or destroyed, depending on application needs. In this article, we introduce a novel solution for suitably modelling and analysing the replica- and fault-aware management of multi-component applications, based on topology graphs and management protocols. More precisely, we first introduce a compositional model of the management behaviour of the (possibly multiple) instances of the components forming an application, faults included. We then show how this model enables automating various useful analyses, from checking the validity of management plans to automatically determining management plans allowing the instance of an application to reach and maintain a desired target configuration.