Abstractions of Abstractions: Metadata to Infrastructure-as-Code

To support cloud newcomers and empower them with the full suite of benefits afforded by the DevOps toolkit, we propose a solution for generating infrastructure-as-code from metadata. Key-value pairs will describe the containers, volumes, configurations and virtual machines that make up a complex microservices architecture. This metadata will be first compiled down to an intermediate template based on the OASIS TOSCA Specification. There, it will be processed by a deployment and execution engine called MiCADO, which will further compile relevant sections of the template into the respective infrastructure-as-code for tools like Kubernetes, Terraform and Ansible. An implementation of the solution is currently being developed for a European project investigating Manufacturing-as-a-Service and Digital Twins, with the hopes of providing an approachable interface for users who are new to the unfamiliar environment of the cloud.