Result-as-a-Service (RaaS): Persistent Helper Functions in a Serverless Offering

Abstract

Serverless Computing or Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) is an execution model for cloud computing environments where the cloud provider executes a piece of code (a function) by dynamically allocating resources. When a function has not been executed for a long time or is being executed for the first time, a new container has to be created, and the execution environment has to be initialized resulting in a cold start. Cold start can result in a higher latency. We propose a new computing and execution model for cloud environments called Result-as-a-Service (RaaS), which aims to reduce the computational cost and overhead while achieving high availability. In between successive calls to a function, a persistent function can help in successive calls by precomputing the functions for different possible arguments and then distributing the results when a matching function call is found.