Exploiting inherent elasticity of serverless in algorithms with unbalanced and irregular workloads

Function-as-a-Service execution model in serverless computing has been successful in running large-scale computations like MapReduce, linear algebra, and machine learning. However, little attention has been given to executing highly-dynamic parallel applications with unbalanced and irregular workloads. These algorithms are difficult to execute with good parallel efficiency due to the challenge of provisioning the required computing resources in time, leading to resource over- and under-provisioning in clusters of static size. We propose that the elasticity and fine-grained “pay-as-you-go model” of the FaaS model can be a key enabler for effectively running these algorithms in the cloud. We use a simple serverless executor pool abstraction, and evaluate it using three algorithms with unbalanced and irregular workloads. Results show that their serverless implementation can outperform a static Spark cluster of large virtual machines by up to 55% with the same cost, and can even outperform a single large virtual machine running locally.