Embracing the Disruption of Serverless Computing
Kickoff Meeting FSSA Project

Embracing the Disruption of Serverless Computing

The Future Software Systems Architectures (FSSA) project will address a key emerging need in the global software business: how to migrate existing ICT systems to serverless microservices based architectures? The successful companies of the past 20 years desire to move to serverless microservices but it is presently a manual, expensive and error-prone task. Whereas traditional software architectures concentrate much of the software program code in large executable applications, serverless microservices architectures are composed of many smaller executable applications. These smaller microservices can run on-demand on servers based in the cloud, on so-called “serverless” infrastructure. The primary benefits of serverless microservices are that they can be substantially less expensive than other forms of hardware provision and they enable rapid business expansion through the frequent and reliable delivery of new software features / ICT based services. The research programme will extend the capabilities of automated program analysis, and through a combination of Machine Learning and next generation automation, will reduce the cost of serverless adoption.

DCU, FINEOS Corporation and FourTheorem are embracing the disruption of serverless computing. DCU are known established innovators who undertake leading-edge research in the software architecture field, and this experience is supplemented with the extensive know-how of FINEOS, a global market leader in core systems for life, accident and health insurance. FourTheorem are software architectural specialists and noted software innovators. The FSSA project is jointly funded by the Disruptive Technology Innovation Fund (established by the Department of Business, Enterprise & Innovation), FINEOS and fourTheorem. Initially funded to a total of €2.1 million, the FSSA project is directed by Dr. Paul Clarke and Prof. Rory O'Connor, both of DCU and Lero, the Irish Software Research Centre. An executive technical steering committee has been established to oversee the project, and includes Dr. Andrew McCarren of DCU, Mr. Dave Doran of Workday, Prof. Pooyan Jamshidi of University of Southern Carolina and Dr. Gerard Marks of Optimality Ltd.

Speaking about the FSSA project Dr. Clarke noted “this is an extremely exciting project which holds the promise of major disruption and innovation as computing enters the serverless era. All partners are highly engaged in this work and look forward to breaking new ground.”

For more information on the project contact: Paul.M.Clarke@dcu.ie