Cloud Elasticity of Microservices-Based Applications: A Survey

Elasticity is an essential treatment in Cloud environment employed in academic and industrial contexts. The main purpose of elasticity is to reduce the deployment cost while optimizing computing resources. Multiple studies were conducted to tackle classic applications using monolithic architecture deployed with virtual machines (VMs). However, with the spread of microservice pattern, recent studies have been investigating this new trend using containers. This paper classifies and discusses existing approaches dealing with cloud elasticity. It provides a novel taxonomy for elastic approaches while focusing on microservices-based solutions. We additionally specify the strength and the shortcomings of each class of works. As a conclusion, we report the challenges for microservices-based applications elasticity and provide requirements for future investigations.