A lightweight design for serverless Function-as-a-Service

Ju Long, Hung-Ying Tai, Shen-Ta Hsieh, Michael Juntao Yuan
10/13/2020
cs.DC

Official code: WasmEdge/WasmEdge (10,840 stars, Apache-2.0, last commit 2026-10-20). 1 more implementation below.

Abstract

FaaS (Function as a Service) allows developers to upload and execute code in the cloud without managing servers. FaaS offerings from leading public cloud providers are based on system microVM or application container technologies such as Firecracker or Docker. In this paper, we demonstrate that lightweight high-level runtimes, such as WebAssembly, could offer performance and scaling advantages over existing solutions, and could enable finely-grained pay-as-you-use business models. We compared widely used performance benchmarks between Docker native and WebAssembly implementations of the same algorithms. We also discuss the barriers for WebAssembly adoption in serverless computing, such as the lack of tooling support.

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Code Implementations(2)

WasmEdge/WasmEdgeOfficial100%
Apache-2.0

WasmEdge is a lightweight, high-performance, and extensible WebAssembly runtime for cloud native, edge, and decentralized applications. It powers serverless apps, embedded functions, microservices, smart contracts, and IoT devices.

10,8401,195C, C++Nov 29, 20195 days agoApache-2.0
artificial-intelligencecloudcloud-nativecncfcontainer+10 more
second-state/wasm32-wasi-benchmarkOfficial100%
3813C, C++Jun 13, 20204 years ago

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Cite this paper

@article{long2020lightweight,
  title  = {A lightweight design for serverless Function-as-a-Service},
  author = {Ju Long and Hung-Ying Tai and Shen-Ta Hsieh and Michael Juntao Yuan},
  year   = {2020},
  eprint = {2010.07115},
  archivePrefix = {arXiv},
  url    = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.07115}
}

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