Application level interface for a cloud monitoring service

•We define an OGF–OCCI interface for the configuration of a monitoring infrastructure in a cloud provision.•While introducing a minimal number of new types, the interface is able to describe complex monitoring infrastructures.•We introduce an OCCI-conformant solution to describe the communication between OCCI entities.•We outline and prototype a cloud manager that deploys the monitoring framework using the container’s technology.•A demo available online operates the prototype to deploy a simple monitoring framework.•We survey the monitoring provisions offered by commercial cloud providers.

We introduce a new paradigm, based on an extension of the Open Cloud Computing Interface (OCCI), for the on-demand monitoring of the cloud resources provided to a user. We have extended the OCCI with two new sub-types of core entities: one to collect the measurements and the other to process them. The user can request instances of such entities to implement a monitoring infrastructure.The paradigm does not target a specific cloud model, and is therefore applicable to any kind of resource provided as a service. The specifications include only the minimum needed to describe a monitoring infrastructure, thus making this standard extension simple and easily adoptable. Despite its simplicity, the model is able to describe complex solutions, including private/public clouds, and covers both infrastructure and application monitoring.To highlight the impact of our proposal in practice, we have designed an engine that deploys a monitoring infrastructure using its OCCI-compliant descriptions. The design is implemented in a prototype that is available as open source.