Simplifying Cloud Management with Cloudless Computing

Yiming Qiu, Patrick Tser Jern Kon, Jiarong Xing, Yibo Huang, Hongyi Liu, Xinyu Wang, Peng Huang, Mosharaf Chowdhury, Ang Chen

Abstract: Cloud computing has transformed the IT industry, but managing cloud infrastructures remains a difficult task. We make a case for putting today's management practices, known as "Infrastructure-as-Code," on a firmer ground via a principled design. We call this end goal Cloudless Computing: it aims to simplify cloud infrastructure management tasks by supporting them "as-a-service," analogous to serverless computing that relieves users of the burden of managing server instances. By assisting tenants with these tasks, cloud resources will be presented to their users more readily without the undue burden of complex control. We describe the research problems by examining the typical lifecycle of today's cloud infrastructure management, and identify places where a cloudless approach will advance the state of the art.