F3: File Systems for FaaS

Function as a Service (FaaS, sometimes also known as "serverless computing") platforms have become popular for web applications due to their elasticity and attractive billing and programming models. These features make FaaS potentially useful for non-web applications as well. However, the restrictions currently imposed by the major cloud providers limits the range of applications that can be transitioned to FaaS platforms. The restriction that we are addressing in this research is the lack of access to shared, persistent file systems from FaaS applications. We plan to demonstrate how access to shared persistent file systems enables a wider range of applications to take advantage of FaaS platforms. We also intend to develop a file system that accelerates workloads for common FaaS data exchange scenarios.

Labs

F3 is a collaboration between IBM Research - Almaden and the File systems and Storage Lab (FSL) at Stony Brook University

Participants & Affiliations

Ali AnwarIBM Research - Almaden
Rohan ChhabraStony Brook University
Aakarsh DuvvuruStony Brook University
Alex MerensteinStony Brook University
Lukas RupprechtIBM Research - Almaden
Rishabh SrivastavaStony Brook University
Nasratullah SultanyStony Brook University
Vasily TarasovIBM Research - Almaden
Erez ZadokStony Brook University


CNSBench: A Cloud Native Storage Benchmark
Alex Merenstein, Vasily Tarasov, Ali Anwar, Deepavali Bhagwat, Julie Lee, Lukas Rupprecht, Dimitris Skourtis, Yang Yang, Erez Zadok
19th USENIX Conference on File and Storage Technologies (FAST '21)
PDF Presentation

The Case for Benchmarking Control Operations in Cloud Native Storage
Alex Merenstein, Vasily Tarasov, Ali Anwar, Deepavali Bhagwat, Lukas Rupprecht, Dimitris Skourtis, Erez Zadok
12th USENIX Workshop on Hot Topics in Storage (HotStorage '20)
PDF Presentation

CNSBench Github