Refining Microservices Placement Employing Workload Profiling Over Multiple Kubernetes Clusters

Abstract

As cloud-native computing is becoming the de-facto paradigm in the cloud field, Microservices Architecture has attracted attention from industries and researchers for agility and efficiency. Moreover, with the popularity of the IoT in the context of edge computing, cloud-native applications that utilize geographically-distributed multiple resources are emerging. In line with this trend, there is an increasing demand for microservices placement that selectively use optimal resources. However, optimal microservices placement is a significant challenge because microservices are dynamic and complex, depending on diversified workloads. Besides, generalizing workloads' characteristics consisting of complex microservices is realistically challenging. Thus, microservices deployment with mathematically structured algorithms based on simulation is less practical. As an alternative, a microservices placement framework is required that can reflect the characteristics of workloads derived from empirical profiling. Therefore, in this research work, we propose a refinement framework for profiling-based microservices placement to identify and respond to workload characteristics in a practical way. To achieve this goal, we perform profiling experiments with selected workloads to derive delicate resource requirements. Then, we perform microservices placement with a greedy-based heuristic algorithm that considers application performance by using resource requirements derived from the profiled results. Finally, we verify the proposed concept by comparing the experimental results that use our work and those that don't.