Serverless Architectures for Sustainable Cloud Computing: A Performance Evaluation
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15662/IJEETR.2025.0704002Keywords:
Serverless computing, sustainable cloud computing, energy efficiency, performance evaluation, cold start latency, auto-scaling, cloud sustainability, resource utilization, carbon footprint, cloud computing 2024Abstract
: The accelerating demand for cloud services has raised significant concerns about energy consumption and environmental sustainability in data centers. Serverless computing, a cloud-native execution model, promises enhanced resource efficiency and scalability by abstracting infrastructure management and enabling fine-grained, event-driven execution. This paper investigates the role of serverless architectures in promoting sustainable cloud computing through a detailed performance evaluation focusing on energy efficiency, resource utilization, and response latency. We propose a systematic framework to assess serverless platforms against traditional Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) models. The evaluation incorporates real-world workloads from IoT data processing, web applications, and batch jobs, deployed on leading cloud providers in 2023–2024. Our results reveal that serverless architectures reduce energy consumption by up to 35% compared to conventional cloud models due to optimized resource provisioning and auto-scaling capabilities. Additionally, serverless platforms demonstrated superior elasticity, with rapid scaling and minimal idle resource wastage. However, the study also identifies latency overheads associated with cold starts and resource limits, impacting performance-sensitive applications. We discuss strategies such as pre-warming, function optimization, and workload characterization to mitigate these drawbacks. Furthermore, the environmental benefits of serverless computing are quantified through carbon footprint estimations using up-to-date energy consumption metrics. This research contributes to understanding how serverless architectures can drive sustainable cloud practices without compromising performance. We conclude with recommendations for cloud providers and developers to harness serverless computing's full potential for energy-efficient and sustainable cloud ecosystems.
References
1. Gomez, A., & Singh, R. (2024). Pre-Warming Techniques for Cold Start Mitigation in Serverless Computing. IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing, 12(2), 190-203.
2. Lee, S., & Park, J. (2024). Comparative Energy Efficiency Analysis of Serverless and Container-Based Cloud Architectures. Journal of Systems and Software, 180, 111002.
3. Liu, H., et al. (2024). Modeling Carbon Footprint in Serverless Computing Environments. Sustainable Computing: Informatics and Systems, 42, 100781.
4. Patel, K., et al. (2024). Workload Characterization for Energy-Efficient Serverless Computing. ACM Symposium on Cloud Computing, 35-46.
5. Xu, Y., et al. (2024). Energy-Aware Scheduling in Cloud Data Centers: Challenges and Opportunities. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 26(1), 123-148.
6. Zhang, L., et al. (2024). Performance and Energy Evaluation of Serverless Architectures for IoT Workloads. Future Generation Computer Systems, 145, 245-260.
