Authors:
Stefan Kehrer
and
Wolfgang Blochinger
Affiliation:
Reutlingen University, Germany
Keyword(s):
Microservices, DevOps, Container Virtualization, Configuration, Service Registry, TOSCA, Docker, Consul.
Abstract:
The state of the art proposes the microservices architectural style to build applications. Additionally, container
virtualization and container management systems evolved into the perfect fit for developing, deploying, and
operating microservices in line with the DevOps paradigm. Container virtualization facilitates deployment
by ensuring independence from the runtime environment. However, microservices store their configuration in
the environment. Therefore, software developers have to wire their microservice implementation with technologies
provided by the target runtime environment such as configuration stores and service registries. These
technological dependencies counteract the portability benefit of using container virtualization. In this paper,
we present AUTOGENIC - a model-based approach to assist software developers in building microservices
as self-configuring containers without being bound to operational technologies. We provide developers with
a simple configur
ation model to specify configuration operations of containers and automatically generate a
self-configuring microservice tailored for the targeted runtime environment. Our approach is supported by a
method, which describes the steps to automate the generation of self-configuring microservices. Additionally,
we present and evaluate a prototype, which leverages the emerging TOSCA standard.
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