Adaptation of the TOSCA standard model for the Kubernetes container environment

Abstract

The main difference between container-based and virtualization-based cloud environments is the way of the virtualization methods for OS and auxiliary resources. Software applications can be both deployed in a cloud on virtual machines or in local data centres on physical machines. Containers are based on OS-level virtualization. So, container applications can be deployed on a virtual machine in the cloud too. To deal with the growth of various, but functionally similar cloud environments, the TOSCA [1] (Topology and Orchestration for Cloud Applications) standard was created. It allows to describe deployment resources in a TOSCA Domain-specific language that does not depend on the provider. Kubernetes [8] is an open-source system for deployment automation, scaling, and management of containerized applications. TOSCA standard was created to describe cloud applications, but the model may be suitable for describing container applications that Kubernetes orchestrate. This paper considers Kubernetes as a cloud provider and examines the applicability of the TOSCA standard for unifying deployment and orchestration not only of resources provided by virtualization-based clouds but also of containerized ones.