The Linux Foundation Member Summit 2021

The advancements of the past few years have resulted in a Cambrian Explosion for the data center. Kubernetes and Docker led to new technologies and workflows for businesses to ship software more rapidly and reliably than ever. However, there is a deep chasm between the maturity of these tools in the datacenter and the state of the art for the edge. Constrained environments must do more with less - less compute, less connectivity, and less storage. In these restricted environments, the overhead and features of containerized software doesn’t match the actual needs of businesses. Enter WebAssembly.

WebAssembly is a compile target, virtual machine, and secure execution environment born of open web standards. With dozens of languages compiling to WebAssembly, it enables teams to ship smaller, more portable software without the operating system anywhere – regardless of if the target is in the data center, in the browser, on micro-scale embedded devices, or even in a database or network appliance. This talk will introduce WebAssembly now and for the future, the power it brings to companies, and show how companies like Mycelial are paving the road for WebAssembly at the edge.