TUFA: A TOSCA extension for the specification of accelerator-aware applications in the Cloud Continuum

Abstract

A Distributed Application Topology is a valuable commodity built on the strength of a long and iterative design process. A topology is generally refined over time, other topologies can use it as a component, and the community may share it. To reproduce a deployment, several properties must be recorded such as data origin, processing steps, configuration settings, and hardware requirements. This paper presents an extension to the TOSCA specification that allows for the definition of accelerator-aware services that can span from Cloud to Edge. Additionally, we introduce the concept of Abstract Applications that contain at least one abstract service definition. The process of Service Optimization replaces the abstract sertvices, creating an explicit topology deployable under hybrid deployment models (Virtual Machines, Containers, HPC) residing on the Cloud Continuum spectrum.