DirectFaaS: A Clean-Slate Network Architecture for Efficient Serverless Chain Communications
Qingyang Zeng, Kaiyu Hou, Xue Leng, Yan Chen · 2024
Serverless computing, also known as Function-as-a-Service (FaaS), triggers web applications in the form of function chains. It uses a central orchestrator to route all requests from end-users and internal functions. Such architecture simplifies application deployment for developers. However, the convenient centralized network architecture compromises the efficiency of function chain communications. Specifically, (i) a centralized API gateway assists in routing requests between functions. This indirect routing scheme raises invocation latency. (ii) The control flow for invoking functions and the data flow for passing function data packets are both forwarded by the API gateway. This results in the API gateway consuming a significant amount of resources. (iii) All data packets of internal function communications go through the same API gateway. This expands the additional attack surface in multi-tenant scenarios.