Integrating Configuration Management with Model-driven Cloud Management based on TOSCA

The paradigm of Cloud computing introduces new approaches to manage IT services going beyond concepts originating in traditional IT service management. The main goal is to automate the whole management of services to reduce costs and to make management tasks less error-prone. Two different service management paradigms are used in practice: configuration management and model-driven Cloud management. The latter one aims to be a holistic management approach for services in the Cloud. However, both management paradigms are originating in different backgrounds, thus model-driven Cloud management does not cover all aspects of configuration management that are key for Cloud services. This paper presents approaches for integrating configuration management with model-driven Cloud management and how they can be realized based on the OASIS Topology and Orchestration Specification for Cloud Applications and Chef, a popular configuration management tool. These approaches enable the creation of holistic and highly portable service models.