XoS: An Extensible Cloud Operating System.

ABSTRACTThis paper describes XOS, a cloud operating system designed to manage hardware and software resources across a multi-tiered cloud. XOS raises the level of abstraction in an IaaS cloud architecture by elevating scalable software services to first-class objects. This involves adopting three design principles: (1) Everything-as-a-Service (XaaS) (services are building blocks, and combinations of those building blocks are also services); (2) Multi-tenancy (a tenant relationship links one service to another, and facilitates reasoning about safety, privacy and efficiency); and (3) Control/Data-plane separation (services are configured through a logically centralized service controller interface, but the controller is not on the data path between services). XOS applies these principles through the lens of an operating system - it defines a set of abstractions that support constructing multi-tenant services that can be folded back into XOS as available building blocks, while also extending the capabilities of conventional IaaS. The paper shows how these abstractions can be used to build a functional, evolvable, service-oriented cloud.