Abstract
Cloud applications developed using a microservices approach require a scaling policy that adapts dynamically to the changing resource demand of the microservice while satisfying the application’s quality of service (QoS) agreement. Current cloud technologies, including Kubernetes Horizontal Pod Autoscaler (HPA), autoscale microservices based on predefined autoscaling metrics, which require a very good knowledge of the application’s resource usage. There is no built-in QoS autoscaling mechanism. In this work, we introduce an intelligent autoscaling module for the horizontal autoscaling of microservices in the cloud. We develop, train, validate, and deploy reinforcement learning (RL) agents on a real-time application using response time as a QoS. The agents, deployed on Google Cloud, can learn the microservices autoscaling resource usage metrics from the cloud environment and customize the Kubernetes HPA while minimizing response time. Our results show a decrease in response time compared to the default Kubernetes HPA. The agents provide an extendible autoscaling plug-in module that can adapt to new QoS metrics.