*LESS is an ongoing workshop series on serverless computing for pervasive cloud-edge-device systems and services. The edge-to-cloud continuum presents a promising approach for deploying pervasive applications and services. Although serverless computing has gained traction for mobile applications, its transformative potential within the context of pervasive applications remains under-explored. To address this gap, *LESS aims to investigate how the edge-to-cloud continuum can unlock new opportunities tailored to the unique requirements and structures of pervasive applications and services.

*LESS offers a unique platform to challenge and advance serverless computing in decentralized and pervasive contexts.

The workshop aims to raise awareness for serverless and FaaS in the PerCom community and foster collaboration with experts from the networking, virtualization, and cloud computing scientific areas:

Area Description
Serverless edge computing Serverless edge computing revolutionizes the deployment of pervasive applications by combining serverless architecture with edge systems. This approach addresses unique requirements like latency and privacy, enabling new applications and improving scalability.
Pervasive applications and services Serverless is becoming the de facto standard for deploying new mobile applications, but the opportunities that can be unlocked by this paradigm in relation to pervasive applications and services have not yet been fully explored.
Pervasive deployments The application of serverless to edge systems and opportunistic computing on user devices is a thriving research area, which may enable new applications that today cannot be realized or boost the adoption of applications that today have scalability issues with traditional tools.
Distributed computing The FaaS programming model is a powerful abstraction, which already today fits many applications of business interest. It is, however, unclear whether the abstraction is sufficient for most or all pervasive applications relying on some form of distributed computing (e.g., management of the state of functions).
Pervasive networking Serverless platforms rely on an underlying abstraction of the network, which is designed and optimised for relatively small data transfers, but pervasive applications and systems may be more data-intensive.
Pervasive analytics Many pervasive applications rely on AI/ML for automated detection and decision-making. The role of serverless and FaaS in this domain has not been defined yet, even though they can promise significant benefits in terms of simpler management and automatic scaling.
Energy Efficiency The stateless, event-driven, and distributed mindset triggered by serverless could make it suitable for the adoption in edge computing, where low-power hardware and energy harvesting technologies are key enablers for scenarios such as remote areas.

Topics of Interest

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Architectures & Deployment:
    • Edge, fog, and cloud serverless computing
    • Serverless on the edge-to-cloud continuum
  • Orchestration & Management:
    • Intent-based and context-aware serverless application orchestration
  • Applications & Services:
    • Serverless computing for pervasive systems and services
    • Function-as-a-service (FaaS) for pervasive applications
    • Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) with/for serverless computing
  • Technologies & Protocols:
    • Distributed serverless computing protocols
    • Serverless computing in emerging communication patterns (e.g., 6G)
  • Evaluation & Analysis:
    • Performance evaluation in pervasive scenarios
    • Modelling, analysis, and simulation using serverless computing
  • Experimentation & Business Cases:
    • Prototypes and real-life experiments involving pervasive systems
    • Technical-economic analysis of serverless/FaaS for pervasive computing
  • Emerging Areas:
    • Serverless quantum computing
    • Sustainability and energy-awareness in edge serverless systems

Important dates

All dates are 23:59, Anywhere-on-Earth (AoE).

Submission due November 17 December 01, 2024
Notification of acceptance January 08, 2025
Camera ready due February 02, 2025
Workshop date March 17/21, 2025 (TBA)

Submission guidelines

All papers must be in PDF format with at most 6 pages, including references. Paper submission must be done through EasyChair, just like with the main PerCom conference:

Papers should contain names and affiliations of the authors (not blinded). All papers must be typeset in double-column IEEE format using 10pt fonts on US letter paper, with all fonts embedded. The IEEE LaTeX and Microsoft Word templates, as well as related information, can be found at the IEEE Computer Society website.

*LESS will be held in conjunction with IEEE PerCom’25. All accepted papers will be included in the PerCom 2025 Workshops proceedings and included and indexed in the IEEE digital library Xplore. At least one author will be required to have a full registration in the PerCom 2025 conference and present the paper during the workshop.