Data Fusion of Observability Signals for Assisting Orchestration of Distributed Applications

Abstract

Nowadays, various frameworks are emerging for supporting distributed tracing techniques over microservices-based distributed applications. The objective is to improve observability and management of operational problems of distributed applications, considering bottlenecks in terms of high latencies in the interaction among the deployed microservices. However, such frameworks provide information that is disjoint from the management information that is usually collected by cloud computing orchestration platforms. There is a need to improve observability by combining such information to easily produce insights related to performance issues and to realize root cause analyses to tackle them. In this paper, we provide a modern observability approach and pilot implementation for tackling data fusion aspects in edge and cloud computing orchestration platforms. We consider the integration of signals made available by various open-source monitoring and observability frameworks, including metrics, logs and distributed tracing mechanisms. The approach is validated in an experimental orchestration environment based on the deployment and stress testing of a proof-of-concept microservices-based application. Helpful results are produced regarding the identification of the main causes of latencies in the various application parts and the better understanding of the behavior of the application under different stressing conditions.