Introducing Fermyon Wasm Functions on Akamai
Matt Butcher
spin
fermyon
akamai
functions
edge
Today we are debuting Fermyon Wasm Functions. This new globally hosted and managed service runs within the Akamai Cloud and delivers absolutely mind-boggling performance with all the features you already know and love about Spin and WebAssembly. In fact, Fermyon Wasm Functions on Akamai is the fastest edge functions platform on the planet.
Here at Fermyon, we’ve always talked about how important it is to optimize compute performance. Older Serverless v1 platforms, like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, are plagued by slow cold start times. At 200-500 milliseconds, these platforms are so slow that they cannot be used as frontline services. End users won’t wait that long, forcing developers to have to layer proxies and caches in front of those services (or just abandon serverless).
As we have said for a long time, the next generation of serverless is faster and more versatile. And it’s powered by WebAssembly. We have remedied the performance situation with the Spin ecosystem, where apps cold start in half of a millisecond. With performance like that, you can run front-line serverless functions for even acutely latency sensitive workloads like streamed media.
Fast Runtime Meets Edge Network
But when it comes to running frontline web services, compute performance is only half of the equation. You also need a blazingly fast network. And this is where Fermyon Wasm Functions shines. In conjunction with Akamai, we are running in Akamai Cloud’s core and distributed regions. With that combination of networking and compute, we are now outperforming every other compute platform on the planet, beating even Cloudflare Workers. And when every 100 milliseconds of delay causes your site’s visitors to lose interest, this kind of performance boon translates to improving bounce rates and cart abandonment rates.
Performance example - load testing execution of 5,000 functions from Ghent, Belgium to Paris, France.
It’s not just a matter of making things faster. We have also built a system that integrates with Akamai’s existing services, from the Property Manager CDN to Global Traffic Manager (GTM) to Linode Object Storage. That makes it even easier for you to build the kind of edge native applications that will not only outperform cloud native apps, but will do so for less money. (Just compare Akamai’s egress fees with Amazon’s and you’ll see what we mean.)
What kinds of things run on the edge? Standard edge functions tend to do relatively lightweight tasks like handling CORS headers, hosting static site generator (SSG) content, or managing redirects. Those things are, of course, simple to do with Fermyon Wasm Functions. But what we are interested even more is the class of applications called Edge Native Apps. These are full apps that once upon a time would have been built for the cloud, but that can be run entirely at the edge in a fully distributed manner. Applications in this class are not just faster and more responsive, but often save bucketloads of money over time. From dynamic content composition to microservices and even on to AI inferencing apps, getting processing power closer to end users is easy with Fermyon Wasm Functions.
The Missing Puzzle Piece for Fermyon
How does this compare to the other things we’ve built here at Fermyon? We view Fermyon Wasm Functions as our missing puzzle piece. We have excellent developer tooling, a first-rate Kubernetes and cloud story, an easy developer self-service platform with Fermyon Cloud, and now a hugely scalable, ultra fast global edge computing platform.
Spin remains the premier developer tool for server-side Wasm applications. (And in case you missed it, Spin is now part of CNCF!) And we continue to contribute first-rate Wasm on Kubernetes with SpinKube and Fermyon Platform for Kubernetes. In fact, we are excited to see these coming to even more cloud providers. Check out our sessions at Azure Day and Google Container Days at KubeCon London, or come visit us at the Container Day at Google Cloud Next. And, of course, we remain committed to WASI and Components. In fact, we’ve spearheaded many of the newest features of WASI p3.
We built Fermyon Cloud as a developer self-service platform. Now with Fermyon Wasm Functions we have an enterprise grade hosted and managed global edge platform. If you are a Fermyon Cloud user looking to spread across many regions, Fermyon Wasm Functions is the next logical step for you.
As you can no doubt tell, we are tremendously excited about Fermyon Wasm Functions, as it is the realization of the goal we had when creating Fermyon: Build the next wave of cloud computing, powered by WebAssembly. It’s time now to show the world just how much better this new wave of cloud computing is.
Don’t just take our word for it - try it out today. (Request access) and learn more with our developer docs.