Fueling innovative software
July 15-18, 2019
Portland, OR

Firecracker: A secure and fast microVM for serverless computing

Arun Gupta (Amazon Web Services), Meena Gowdar (Amazon Web Services)
2:35pm–3:15pm Wednesday, July 17, 2019
Cloud-Native Strategies and Implementation
 Location: Portland 251
Secondary topics:  Cloud Native
Average rating: ***..
(3.50, 10 ratings)

Who is this presentation for?

  • Developers and architects

Level

Intermediate

Description

Firecracker is an open source virtualization technology that is purpose-built for creating and managing secure, multitenant containers and functions-based services. Firecracker runs in user space and uses the Linux kernel-based virtual machine (KVM) to create microVMs. The fast startup time and low memory overhead of each microVM enable you to pack thousands of microVMs onto the same machine.

Arun Gupta and Meena Gowdar explore the foundation of Firecracker and explain the minimal device model and how it interacts with Kubernetes, Docker, and Kata containers. You’ll learn about the decisions that led to the performance, security, and utilization improvements enabled by Firecracker and how Firecracker is the building block for AWS Lambda and AWS Fargate. Along the way, Arun and Meena fire up thousands of Firecracker microVMs on a variety of cloud providers to demonstrate its capabilities.

What you'll learn

  • Learn about Firecracker and how it interacts with Kubernetes, Docker, and Kata containers
Photo of Arun Gupta

Arun Gupta

Amazon Web Services

Arun Gupta is a principal open source technologist at Amazon Web Services. Previously, Arun built and led developer communities at Sun, Oracle, Red Hat, and Couchbase. He has deep expertise leading cross-functional teams to develop and execute strategy and in planning and executing content, marketing campaigns, and programs. He’s also led engineering teams at Sun and was a founding member of the Java EE team. Arun is an avid runner, a globe trotter, a Java Champion, a four-year consecutive JavaOne Rock Star, a JUG leader, NetBeans Dream Team member, and a Docker Captain. He’s authored more than 2,000 blog posts on technology and has given talks in more than 40 countries. He founded the Devoxx4Kids chapter in the US and continues to promote technology education among children. He’s easily accessible at @arungupta.

Photo of Meena Gowdar

Meena Gowdar

Amazon Web Services

Meena Gowdar is a senior product manager at Amazon Web Services, where she’s responsible for strategy and product delivery of Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), and Firecracker, an open source virtualization technology. She’s a passionate technologist who has worked in consumer electronics, wearables, and fintech industries and helped grow businesses worldwide and an advocate and advisor for #BUILTBYGIRLS, a nonprofit for women leaders in tech. She’s also a devoted reader and vehement skier, loves cooking, and enjoys traveling.