FaaSt: A Latency-Aware Serverless Scheme for Edge-Cloud Environments

Serverless computing offers an effective way to improve resource utilization and can significantly leverage edge-cloud environments. In this context, serverless request response times are one of the main focuses for optimization. However, the end-to-end routing path from a request to a function, which considerably contributes to the overall delay, is often overlooked. This oversight raises concerns about the actual performance of serverless in edge-cloud deployments, as serverless architectures are initially designed for cloud computing where node-to-node delay is negligible. To address this concern, our paper examines the current serverless networking design in a realistic edge-cloud setup. Our findings reveal significant performance degradation when serverless is applied in such environments due to key mismatches in the networking architecture. To mitigate these issues, we propose a novel latency-aware scheme and a load balancing mechanism for edge-cloud environments, called FaaSt. This proposal is implemented using open sources and standards, resulting in a significant reduction in response times.