WebAssembly on the server - the future of cloud computing?

WebAssembly on the server - the future of cloud computing? WebAssembly (WASM) is a binary instruction format designed to run in the browser, bringing near-native performance to the web. As a compilation target for over 30 languages, including Rust, Swift, Python and C# / .NET, developers are free to write their applications in their favourite language. WASM is portable, secure and fast.

The advent of server-side support for WASM (WebAssembly System Interface, WASI) makes it possible to run WASM code outside the browser, on any platform. WASM and WASI can in many ways replace Docker as the common cloud runtime environment. Co-founder of Docker, Solomon Hykes, tweeted back in 2019: “If WASM+WASI existed in 2008, we wouldn’t have needed to create Docker. That’s how important it is. WebAssembly on the server is the future of computing.“.

So why should you as a developer care about WASM+WASI, how can you play around with it today, and how might it affect the way we build and run code in the cloud in the future? Is WASM just Java reinvented? Come to my talk to find out.