Efficiency in the serverless cloud paradigm: A survey on the reusing and approximation aspects
Open accessAbstract
Summary: Serverless computing along with Function‐as‐a‐Service (FaaS) is forming a new computing paradigm that is anticipated to found the next generation of cloud systems. The popularity of this paradigm is due to offering a highly transparent infrastructure that enables user applications to scale in the granularity of their functions. Since these often small and single‐purpose functions are managed on shared computing resources behind the scene, a great potential for computational reuse and approximate computing emerges that if unleashed, can remarkably improve the efficiency of serverless cloud systems—both from the user's QoS and system's (energy consumption and incurred cost) perspectives. Accordingly, the goal of this survey study is to, first, unfold the internal mechanics of serverless computing and, second, explore the scope for efficiency within this paradigm via studying function reuse and approximation approaches and discussing the pros and cons of each one. Next, we outline potential future research directions within this paradigm that can either unlock new use cases or make the paradigm more efficient.
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FaaS focuses on the front-end development of functions, BaaS focuses on the transparent and isolated execution of the functions [90].
“While FaaS focuses on the front-end development of functions, BaaS focuses on the transparent and isolated execution of the functions [90].”
From Confidential Computing Across Edge‐To‐Cloud for Machine Learning: A Survey Study (2025) · cites this paper as [90]
Cites
Shahrad, M., Fonseca, R., Goiri, Í., Chaudhry, G., Batum, P., Cooke, J., Laureano, E., Tresness, C., Russinovich, M., & Bianchini, R. (2020) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2003.03423 · Cited by 391 · see citing works
Arachchi, S. A. I. B. S., & Perera, I. (2018) · 2018 Moratuwa Engineering Research Conference (MERCon) · doi:10.1109/mercon.2018.8421965 · Cited by 97 · cited 2× · see citing works
“(2) Similar function: Following the microservice-based software development principles [4], generally, functions are developed to be short and single-purpose to ease the continuous deployment (CD) process.”
BackgroundMethodJourney from cloud of things to fog of things: survey, new trends, and research directions
Chakraborty, A., Kumar, M., Chaurasia, N., & Gill, S. S. (2023) · Software: Practice and Experience · doi:10.1002/spe.3157 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Harnessing the Potential of Function-Reuse in Multimedia Cloud Systems
Denninnart, C., & Salehi, M. A. (2022) · IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems · doi:10.1109/tpds.2021.3097911 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
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Confidential Computing Across Edge‐To‐Cloud for Machine Learning: A Survey Study
Zobaed, S., & Amini Salehi, M. (2025) · Software Practice and Experience · doi:10.1002/spe.3398 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
“This is primarily due to the additional steps involved in encrypting and decrypting data, managing secure enclaves, and the potential for increased page faults due to smaller memory spaces in secure enclaves.”
Self-citationUMS: Live Migration of Containerized Services across Autonomous Computing Systems
Chanikaphon, T., & Salehi, M. A. (2023) · GLOBECOM 2023 - 2023 IEEE Global Communications Conference · doi:10.1109/globecom54140.2023.10437519 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citationFastMig: Leveraging FastFreeze to Establish Robust Service Liquidity in Cloud 2.0
Manatura, S., Chanikaphon, T., Chantrapornchai, C., & Salehi, M. A. (2024) · 2024 IEEE 17th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD) · doi:10.1109/cloud62652.2024.00019 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Denninnart, C., Chanikaphon, T., & Amini Salehi, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Louisiana at Lafayette (US)
- High Performance Cloud Computing (HPCC) Laboratory School of Computing and Informatics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette Louisiana USA
- Venue
- Software: Practice and Experience
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2023-06-24
- Volume
- 53
- Issue
- 10
- Pages
- 1853-1886
- ISSN
- 0038-0644 (ISSN-L)
- 1097-024X
- OpenAlex
- W4381849286
- Cited by
- 15
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7 · 2023: 1
- FWCI
- 3.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- arxiv.org
- Locations
- Software Practice and Experience (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (cc-by)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka (CNS‐2007209, CNS‐2047144)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Cloud Computing and Resource Management
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Hardware and Architecture › Energy Efficiency in Computing
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Networks and Communications › Distributed systems and fault tolerance
- Keywords
- serverless computing, function-as-a-service, approximate computing, energy consumption, cost reduction, quality of service, shared computing resources
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