arXiv subjects

Tamara Ranković

Publications and source records attributed to Tamara Ranković.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A monitoring system for collecting and aggregating metrics from distributed clouds

Applications requiring real-time processing of large volumes of data have been the main driver for rethinking the traditional cloud, giving rise to novel cloud models. Distributed cloud (DC) is a model that allows users to dynamically create and dispose of strategically located ad-hoc clouds that contain resources best tailored to their needs. It is essential for this model to provide a high degree of observability for it to be viable in real-world scenarios. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a monitoring system that collects metrics from DCs and makes them accessible to diverse clients. Agents running on nodes are responsible for collecting machine-, container-, and application-level metrics. During the health-check protocol, that data is transferred from the node to the DC's control plane running inside the cloud. There, it is persisted and served via multiple APIs, including a streaming API. Moreover, node metrics are aggregated for every DC in order to provide a more comprehensive view of the system's state.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Misconfiguration prevention and error cause detection for distributed-cloud applications

Major software failures are reported to be due to misconfiguration. As manual configuration is too error-prone to be deemed a reliable strategy for dynamic and complex systems, automated configuration management has become a standard. Countermeasures against misconfiguration can be focused on prevention or, if failure already occurred, detection. Configuration is often used as a broad term for any set of parameters or system states that dictate how an application will behave, but in this paper, we only focus on parameters consumed on process startup, usually from configuration files. Our objective is to enhance configuration management processes in environments based on the distributed cloud model, a novel cloud model that allows dynamic allocation of strategically located resources. The two mechanisms we propose are configuration validation using schemas and configuration version control with support for detecting differences between configuration versions. Our solution reduces the risk of incorrect configuration as schemas prevent any non-compliant configuration from reaching applications. However, if failure still occurs because the schema was incomplete or a valid configuration revealed existing software bugs, the version control system can precisely locate configuration changes that triggered the failure.

cs.DC↗

arXiv2024

Access control in a distributed micro-cloud environment

Proliferation of systems that generate enormous amounts of data and operate in real time has led researchers to rethink the current organization of the cloud. Many proposed solutions consist of a number of small data centers in the vicinity of data sources. That creates a highly complex environment, where strict access control is essential. Recommended access control models frequently belong to the Attribute-Based Access Control (ABAC) family. Flexibility and dynamic nature of these models come at the cost of high policy management complexity. In this paper, we explore whether the administrative overhead can be lowered with resource hierarchies. We propose an ABAC model that incorporates user and object hierarchies. We develop a policy engine that supports the model and present a distributed cloud use case. Findings in this paper suggest that resource hierarchies simplify the administration of ABAC models, which is a necessary step towards their further inclusion in real-world systems.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2024

Configuration management in the distributed cloud

Owing to their cost-effectiveness and flexibility, cloud services have been the default choice for the deployment of innumerable software systems over the years. However, novel paradigms are beginning to emerge, as the cloud can't meet the requirements of increasingly many latency- and privacy-sensitive applications. The distributed cloud model, being one of the attempts to overcome these challenges, places a distributed cloud layer between device and cloud layers, intending to bring resources closer to data sources. As application code should be kept separate from its configuration, especially in highly dynamic cloud environments, there is a need to incorporate configuration primitives in future distributed cloud platforms. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a configuration management subsystem for an open-source distributed cloud platform. Our solution spreads across the cloud and distributed cloud layers and supports configuration versioning, selective dissemination to nodes in the distributed cloud layer, and logical isolation via namespaces. Our work serves as a demonstration of the feasibility and usability of the new cloud-extending models and provides valuable insight into one of the possible implementations.

cs.DC↗