Towards an Architecture for Reliable Capacity Provisioning for Distributed Clouds

The complexity of computing along the cloud-to-edge continuum presents significant challenges to ICT operations and in particular reliable capacity planning and resource provisioning to meet unpredictable, fluctuating, and mobile demand. This chapter presents a high-level conceptual overview of RECAP—an architectural innovation to support reliable capacity provisioning for distributed clouds—and its operational modes and functional building blocks. In addition, the major design concepts informing its design—namely separation of concerns, model-centricism, modular design, and machine learning and artificial intelligence for IT operations—are also discussed.