Server-Side WebAssembly

In this episode of the Cloud Native Compass podcast, the guests discuss WebAssembly and server-side WebAssembly. The guests include Kevin Hoffman, CTO of Cosmonic and creator of the WasmCloud open source project, Connor Hicks, founder and CEO of Suborbital, and Kate Goldenring, senior software engineer at Fermyon.
They each share their experiences and paths to working with WebAssembly, with Kevin having experimented with Asm.js and CloudABI before discovering WebAssembly, Connor being drawn to the performance benefits of WebAssembly for a job processing framework, and Kate coming from a Kubernetes background and working on a project called Krustlet, which was an attempt to run WebAssembly instead of containers on Kubernetes.
The discussion also covers the WebAssembly Systems Interface (WASI), which was originally created to give WebAssembly modules access to low-level external services like file descriptors and standard out, but is evolving towards a component model where external services are high-level abstractions like web clients, web servers, and key value stores. WASI is defined by WIT interfaces that give access to host resources or other resources that the host can control.
Overall, the episode provides insights into the growing use of WebAssembly and server-side WebAssembly in cloud-based applications and the potential benefits they offer.
Chapters
(00:00) - Introductions
(01:42) - The Path to WebAssembly
(06:35) - What is WASI & Component Model
(17:20) - Why WebAssembly?
(22:35) - When WebAssembly?
(34:00) - WebAssembly Adoption
(41:40) - Containers with WebAssembly
(47:15) - Shameless Plugs