Towards reference architecture for a multi-layer controlled self-Adaptive microservice system

Abstract

With the features of high distribution in deployment and independence in running, the microservice systems that operate in heterogeneous infrastructures and open Internet environment are expected to be self-Adaptive to adapt to various changes of both operating contexts and application requirements. This requires the adaptability of the microservice systems to be diverse and flexible, and independent of implementation technologies and platforms. This paper presents a reference architecture for self-Adaptive microservice systems with the abilities of multi-layer controlled self-Adaptations, including infrastructure-controlled layer and application-controlled layer. Such reference architecture presents a blueprint to cope with diverse changes from different levels in microservice systems and supports the interactions between layers. We have implemented a practical platform called SAMSP based on the reference architecture and Kubernetes and evaluated our approach using a sample. The experimental results are promising, and demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of our proposed reference architecture.