Benchmarking the Data Layer Across Serverless Platforms

Abstract

The use of highly scalable serverless platforms for web microservices and IoT applications is well known. However, their use for data-intensive applications is restricted due to the stateless nature of serverless functions. Any data retrieval, storage, and the peer-to-peer communication requirement of an application in serverless deployment is satisfied using cloud storage services such as object storage, database, cache, etc. The heterogeneous cloud storage services offered by different cloud service providers have unique deliverable performance. One key challenge is to find the maximum achievable data transfer rate from serverless platforms to cloud storage services. In this work, we evaluate the performance of storage systems available for use with serverless platforms from multiple cloud vendors. Additionally, we examine the effect of cloud service characteristics and configurations on accelerating the data transfer between them. The experimental data provides some key insights to assist with designing application architecture using serverless platforms and cloud storage services.