A Pattern-based Function and Workflow Visual Environment for FaaS Development across the Continuum

The ability to split applications across different locations in the con- tinuum (edge/cloud) creates needs for application break down into smaller and more distributed chunks. In this realm the Function as a Service approach appears as a significant enabler in this process. The paper presents a visual function and workflow development environment for complex FaaS (Apache OpenwhisK) applications. The environment offers a library of pattern based and reusable nodes and flows while mitigating function orchestration limita- tions in the domain. Generation of the deployable artefacts, i.e. the functions, is performed through embedded DevOps pipelines. A range of annotations are available for dictating diverse options in- cluding QoS needs, function or data locality requirements, function affinity considerations etc. These are propagated to the deployment and operation stacks for supporting the cloud/edge interplay. The mechanism is evaluated functionally through creating, registering and executing functions and orchestrating workflows, adapting typical parallelization patterns and an edge data collection process.