Hybrid Serverless Computing: Opportunities and Challenges

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential and challenges of extending serverless computing into hybrid environments that include public clouds, private clouds, and edge systems, driven by technological and market trends.

Contribution

It provides an analysis of opportunities and challenges in developing Hybrid Serverless Computing, highlighting the need for new solutions in distributed platforms.

Findings

Hybrid Cloud market could surpass a trillion dollars

Serverless computing's extension to hybrid environments is feasible but complex

Emerging technologies like 5G and IoT drive hybrid serverless opportunities

Abstract

In recent years, there has been a surge in the adoption of serverless computing due to the ease of deployment, attractive pay-per-use pricing, and transparent horizontal auto-scaling. At the same time, infrastructure advancements such as the emergence of 5G networks and the explosion of devices connected to Internet known as Internet of Things (IoT), as well as new application requirements that constrain where computation and data can happen, will expand the reach of Cloud computing beyond traditional data centers into Hybrid Cloud. Digital transformation due to the pandemic, which accelerated changes to the workforce and spurred further adoption of AI, is expected to accelerate and the emergent Hybrid Cloud market could potentially expand to over trillion dollars. In the Hybrid Cloud environment, driven by the serverless tenants there will be an increased need to focus on enabling productive work for application builders that are using a distributed platform including public clouds, private clouds, and edge systems. In this chapter we investigate how far serverless computing can be extended to become Hybrid Serverless Computing.