FIRST: Exploiting the Multi-Dimensional Attributes of Functions for Power-Aware Serverless Computing

Abstract

Emerging cloud-native development models raise new challenges for managing server performance and power at microsecond scale. Compared with traditional cloud workloads, serverless functions exhibit unprecedented heterogeneity, variability, and dynamicity. Designing cloud-native power management schemes for serverless functions requires significant engineering effort. Current solutions remain sub-optimal since their orchestration process is often one-sided, lacking a systematic view. A key obstacle to truly efficient function deployment is the fundamental wide abstraction gap between the upper-layer request scheduling and the low-level hardware execution.In this work, we show that the optimal operating point (OOP) for energy efficiency cannot be attained without synthesizing the multi-dimensional attributes of functions. We present FIRST, a novel mechanism that enables servers to better orchestrate serverless functions. The key feature of FIRST is that it leverages a lightweight Internal Representation and meta-Scheduling (IRS) layer for collecting the maximum potential revenue from the servers. Specifically, FIRST follows a pipeline-style workflow. Its frontend components aim to analyze functions from different angles and expose their key features to the system. Meanwhile, its backend components are able to make informed function assignment decisions to avoid OOP divergence. We further demonstrate the way to create extensions based on FIRST to enable versatile cloud-native power management. In total, our design constitutes a flexible management layer that supports power-aware function deployment. We show that FIRST could allow 94% functions to be processed under the OOP, which brings up to 24% energy efficiency improvements.