FaaSten your decisions: A classification framework and technology review of function-as-a-Service platforms

Vladimir Yussupov,Jacopo Soldani,Uwe Breitenbücher,Antonio Brogi,Frank Leymann

doi:10.1016/j.jss.2021.110906

Vladimir Yussupov, Jacopo Soldani + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2021.110906

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Abstract

Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) is a cloud service model enabling developers to offload event-driven executable snippets of code. The execution and management of such functions becomes a FaaS provider’s responsibility, therein included their on-demand provisioning and automatic scaling. Key enablers for this cloud service model are FaaS platforms, e.g., AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, or OpenFaaS. At the same time, the choice of the most appropriate FaaS platform for deploying and running a serverless application is not trivial, as various organizational and technical aspects have to be taken into account. In this work, we present (i) a FaaS platform classification framework derived using a multivocal review and (ii) a technology review of the ten most prominent FaaS platforms, based on the proposed classification framework. We also present a FaaS platform selection support system, called FaaStener, which can help researchers and practitioners to choose the FaaS platform most suited for their requirements.

Highlights

In the context of cloud computing, the term serverless is typically used to describe a paradigm focusing on cloud architectures that comprise provider-managed components [1]
Most of considered platforms concretely document how to develop serverless application that can run on the platform, hereby included the available runtime environments and how to exploit the support provided by the platform
With the ultimate goal of supporting researchers and practitioners in classifying existing FaaS platforms and choosing those most suited to their needs, we presented a classification framework, technology review and selection support system for FaaS platforms

Summary

Introduction

In the context of cloud computing, the term serverless is typically used to describe a paradigm focusing on cloud architectures that comprise provider-managed components [1]. Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) is a cloud service model enabling the hosting of business logic in a serverless fashion, which makes this model an essential instrument for developing serverless applications. In case functions are no longer needed, they are scaled to zero instances, eliminating the need to pay for idle application components unlike in other service models that continuously run components, e.g., Platform-as-a-Service [3]. Function-as-a-Service is an integral part of the serverless world as it enables hosting business logic in the form of functions that are typically stateless and driven by events. This means that the deployed function code can be triggered by events originating from multiple heterogeneous event sources such as databases, message queues, or streaming platforms. The actual list of supported event sources and possible ways to integrate events from third party services depends on the employed

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