For developers, early experiments hint at the benefits of bringing back-end functionality to laptops, mobiles, and remote CPUs. The big benefit of edge computing is bringing business logic as close to users or data as possible, as round-trip network latency is often what takes the most time for individual requests. Until now, exposing back-end functionality to end user devices has been difficult, expensive, and sometimes impossible, depending on the edge device architecture. Even in Kubernetes, locations must be specifically defined and configured.
With Wasm, cloud-native back ends can be distributed and run just as easily as displaying static assets to front-end users, in the same way that a CDN might operate. Because Wasm is a platform-agnostic binary format, it can run polyglot back ends in the cloud, on the edge, even in a web browser tab. As we look to the future, it won’t matter which language we program in, Wasm will let us build applications that are local first and edge native.
Just as cloud computing has allowed companies to accelerate application development life cycles, WebAssembly is poised to further accelerate innovation in edge computing. By enabling cloud-native back ends to run on operational edges, Wasm allows for the distribution of business logic closer to users or data. And thanks to its platform-agnostic binary format, Wasm also transcends language barriers, empowering developers to build edge-native applications that prioritize local execution.
Liam Randall is CEO of Cosmonic and co-chair of Wasmcon and Cloud Native Wasm Day.
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