Overview

Figure: An example scenario with a guest application acquiring resources from two cluster sites through a broker. Each resource provider site has a server (site authority) that controls its resources, and registers inventories of offered resources with the broker. A service manager negotiates with the broker and authorities for leases on behalf of the guest. A common lease package manages the protocol interactions and lease state for all actors. The Shirako leasing core is resource-independent, application-independent, and policy-neutral.

Shirako's leasing architecture derives from the SHARP framework for secure resource peering and distributed resource allocation [13]. The participants in the leasing protocols are long-lived software entities (actors) that interact over a network to manage resources.

• Each guest has an associated service manager that monitors application demands and resource status, and negotiates to acquire leases for the mix of resources needed to host the guest. Each service manager requests and maintains leases on behalf of one or more guests, driven by its own knowledge of application behavior and demand.

• An authority controls resource allocation at each resource provider site or domain, and is responsible for enforcing isolation among multiple guests hosted on the resources under its control.

• Brokers (agents) maintain inventories of resources offered by sites, and match requests with their resource supply. A site may maintain its own broker to keep control of its resources, or delegate partial, temporary control to third-party brokers that aggregate resource inventories from multiple sites.

These actors may represent different trust domains and identities, and may enter into various trust relationships or contracts with other actors.