Maksym Arutyunyan, Andriy Berestovskyy, Adam Bratschi-Kaye, Ulan Degenbaev, Manu Drijvers, Islam El-Ashi, Stefan Kaestle, Roman Kashitsyn, Maciej Kot, Yvonne-Anne Pignolet, Rostislav Rumenov, Dimitris Sarlis, Alin Sinpalean, Alexandru Uta, Bogdan Warinschi, and Alexandra Zapuc, DFINITY, Zurich
The Internet Computer (IC) is a fast and efficient decentralized blockchain-based platform for the execution of general-purpose applications in the form of smart contracts. In other words, the IC service is the antithesis of current serverless computing. Instead of ephemeral, stateless functions operated by a single entity, the IC offers decentralized stateful serverless computation over untrusted, independent datacenters. Developers deploy stateful canisters that serve calls either to end-users or other canisters. The IC programming model is similar to serverless clouds, with applications written in modern languages such as Rust or Python, yet simpler: state is maintained automatically, without developer intervention.
In this paper, we identify and address significant systems challenges to enable efficient decentralized stateful serverless computation: scalability, stateful execution through orthogonal persistence, and deterministic scheduling. We describe the design of the IC and characterize its operational data gathered over the past 1.5 years, and its performance.
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author = {Maksym Arutyunyan and Andriy Berestovskyy and Adam Bratschi-Kaye and Ulan Degenbaev and Manu Drijvers and Islam El-Ashi and Stefan Kaestle and Roman Kashitsyn and Maciej Kot and Yvonne-Anne Pignolet and Rostislav Rumenov and Dimitris Sarlis and Alin Sinpalean and Alexandru Uta and Bogdan Warinschi and Alexandra Zapuc},
title = {Decentralized and Stateful Serverless Computing on the Internet Computer Blockchain},
booktitle = {2023 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC 23)},
year = {2023},
isbn = {978-1-939133-35-9},
address = {Boston, MA},
pages = {329--343},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc23/presentation/arutyunyan},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jul
}
