Report on Current Developments in Cloud Computing and Serverless Technologies
General Direction of the Field
The field of cloud computing and serverless technologies is rapidly evolving, with a strong emphasis on education, benchmarking, resource efficiency, and hybrid cloud orchestration. Recent developments indicate a shift towards more comprehensive and practical approaches to teaching cloud infrastructure and scalable application deployment at the undergraduate level. This educational focus is crucial for equipping the next generation of developers with the skills needed to navigate the complexities of modern cloud environments.
Benchmarking serverless workflows has emerged as a significant area of innovation, driven by the need for consistent and fair performance evaluations across different platforms. This trend underscores the growing maturity of serverless computing as a mainstream paradigm, necessitating standardized tools for assessing performance, cost, scalability, and runtime deviations.
Resource efficiency in serverless systems is another key area of advancement, with a particular focus on energy-efficient scheduling. As serverless computing becomes more pervasive, the energy consumption of these systems is gaining attention, leading to the development of novel scheduling techniques that balance energy usage with performance requirements.
Hybrid cloud orchestration is also gaining traction, particularly for batch-processing applications that require the orchestration of serverless functions across heterogeneous infrastructures. This approach aims to leverage the strengths of both private and public cloud environments to optimize cost, performance, and deadline compliance.
Noteworthy Papers
Teaching Cloud Infrastructure and Scalable Application Deployment in an Undergraduate Computer Science Program: This paper stands out for its innovative approach to integrating cloud engineering principles into undergraduate education, providing students with practical skills in cloud-native application development.
SeBS-Flow: Benchmarking Serverless Cloud Function Workflows: This work is notable for introducing the first platform-agnostic serverless workflow benchmarking suite, enabling rigorous and comparable evaluations across different cloud platforms.
Energy Efficient Scheduling for Serverless Systems: This paper is significant for its novel approach to minimizing energy consumption in serverless systems while maintaining performance, addressing an important yet under-explored aspect of serverless computing.
Orchestrating the Execution of Serverless Functions in Hybrid Clouds: This work is noteworthy for its Hybrid Cloud Scheduler, which optimizes the execution of serverless batch-processing pipelines across heterogeneous infrastructures, enhancing both cost efficiency and deadline compliance.
