COSOn

COSOn stands for Cloud Orchestration and Service Overlay Network, a theoretical framework for interoperable cross-cloud service orchestration. It aims to standardize how cloud resources and services are discovered, composed, and managed across multiple providers, enabling portability and policy-driven operations.

History: It originated as a concept in open-source forums in the early 2020s and has seen several reference implementations. The COSOn Initiative released a draft specification and a reference runtime, but adoption remains limited relative to vendor-specific platforms.

Architecture: The COSOn architecture comprises a central COSOn Controller that maintains desired state, a set of COSOn Agents deployed on cloud environments, and a Service Overlay Network that provides secure, low-latency communication between resources across providers. A declarative configuration language defines services, dependencies, scaling policies, and security requirements. The Control Plane reconciles state with the desired configuration, invoking provider APIs and edge components as needed. The Overlay Network supports service discovery, mTLS, and traffic shaping.

Applications: COSOn targets multi-cloud deployments, hybrid cloud integrations, edge computing, and disaster-recovery scenarios where portability and policy compliance are critical.

Limitations: Critics note complexity, integration overhead, and evolving standards as potential barriers. Proponents argue it reduces vendor lock-in and improves governance, observability, and resilience.