CoMA: Resource monitoring of Docker containers

Abstract

This research paper presents CoMA, a Container Monitoring Agent, that oversees resource consumption of operating system level virtualization platforms, primarily targeting container-based platforms such as Docker. The core contribution is CoMA, together with a quantitative evaluation verifying the validity of the measurements reported by the agent for three metrics: CPU, memory and block I/O. The proof-of-concept is implemented for Docker-based systems and consists of CoMA, the Ganglia Monitoring System and the Host sFlow agent. This research is in line with the rising trend of container adoption which is due to the resource efficiency and ease of deployment. These characteristics have set containers in a position to topple virtual machines as the reigning virtualization technology in data centers.