WebAssembly for Edge Computing: Potential and Challenges

Abstract

Latency and privacy concerns, together with the spread of smart/IoT devices, have recently sparked interest in computational offloading to the edge. Portability and migratability are important requirements to achieve a stable edge-offloading platform. To that end, code compatibility is one of the core challenges toward achieving these goals due to the inherent heterogeneity of edge devices. In this article, we first examine existing edge-computing technologies, how they achieve portability and migratability, and the advantag-es and limitations, via experimentation, of each method. We then explore leveraging WebAssem-bly for edge computing. We present an overview of this rising technology, assess its performance, and discuss its potential compared to other solutions for edge offloading. In the end, we outline four potential methods to achieve migratability with WebAssembly and the trade-offs and costs of deployment for each method.