FaaS for IoT: Evolving Serverless towards Deviceless in I/Oclouds
Giovanni Merlino, Giuseppe Tricomi, Luca D’Agati, Zakaria Benomar, Francesco Longo, Antonio Puliafito
Abstract
The burgeoning paradigms of Fog and Edge computing propose delegating Cloud-related tasks to the network’s periphery, thus placing computational resources closer to data producers. This shift promises to boost the performance of IoT-based services, providing swift response times while conserving bandwidth. Despite their potential, the current Edge/Fog computing platforms must provide the required flexibility for dynamic service orchestration within a data-oriented context. Addressing this gap, the Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) model emerges as an exceptional strategy for Edge/Fog deployments. Its ability to manage an ever-expanding ecosystem of devices with remarkable flexibility and efficiency holds considerable promise. This paper articulates a novel approach to enhancing the adaptability of IoT Edge/Fog deployments. We propose an innovative extension to OpenStack, an open-source Cloud management system, which pushes its functionality towards the network Edge. Our approach empowers OpenStack to facilitate FaaS services within a distributed IoT infrastructure, thus infusing unprecedented adaptability and efficiency into the Edge/Fog computing paradigms.