A User-driven Adaptation Approach for Microservice-based IoT Applications

Modern IoT-based applications are developed by using microservices implementing various functionalities. However, they still tend to be rigid from a user’s perspective, i.e., the user typically adapts to how the software is designed. Conversely, we want the software and the IoT devices adapting to the user’s goal and its dynamic nature, thus making the user as one of the key design element. For these reasons, we present MiLA4U, a multi-level self-adaptive approach that works at the three different user, microservices, and devices levels. Specifically, it i) makes use of a goal model defining run-time user goals that must be achieved without compromising the overall QoS, by adaptations towards the other levels. It therefore ii) continuously monitors the QoS of the microservices and IoT, and iii) leverages multiple algorithms for the QoS-aware dynamic selection, execution, and adaptation of microservices and IoT devices. MiLA4U is experimented on a real case study. Evaluation results show that it is able to satisfy the user goals while guaranteeing higher QoS on the microservices and IoT devices compared to standard baselines.