Silverline: Lightweight Virtualization and Orchestration of Distributed Systems
Arjun Ramesh, Tianshu Huang, Emily Ruppel, Dakshina Dasari, Behnaz Pourmohseni, Fedor Smirnov, Marco Giani, Paolo Pazzaglia, Charles Shelton, Nuno Pereira, Arne Hamann, Dirk Ziegenbein, Anthony Rowe · 2025
We introduce Silverline, a novel framework for lightweight virtualization and orchestration of distributed real-time systems. Leveraging WebAssembly (Wasm) for robust sandboxing and multi-language (polyglot) capabilities, Silverline decouples applications from their platforms through distinct manifests, enabling a centralized orchestrator to optimize resource allocation and deploy Wasm modules seamlessly across the edge-cloud continuum. It features a split data and control plane with orchestration sidecars, allowing applications to use native communication protocols and respond autonomously to network changes. We evaluate our framework in two real application contexts: an industrial automation use-case and an automotive body electronics demonstrator. Through micro-benchmarks and end-to-end testing, we demonstrate Silverline's potential for managing real-time workloads in diverse heterogeneous ecosystems.