Exploring WebAssembly for Cloud-Native Development

I’m a senior solution architect and polyglot programmer interested in the evolution of programming languages and their impact on application development. Around three years ago, I encountered WebAssembly (Wasm) through the .NET Blazor project. This technology caught my attention because it can execute applications at near-native speed across different programming languages. This was especially exciting to me as a polyglot programmer since my programming expertise ranges across multiple programming languages including .NET, PHP, Node.js, Rust, and Go.

Most of the work I do is building cloud-native enterprise applications, so I have been particularly interested in advancements that broaden Wasm’s applicability in cloud-native development. WebAssembly 2.0 was a significant leap forward, improving performance and flexibility while streamlining integration with web and cloud infrastructures to make Wasm an even more powerful tool for developers to build versatile and dynamic cloud-native applications. I aim to share the knowledge and understanding I've gained, providing an overview of Wasm’s capabilities and its potential impact on the cloud-native development landscape.

Polyglot Programming and the Component Model

My initial attraction to WebAssembly stemmed from its capability to enhance browser functionalities for graphic-intensive and gaming applications, breaking free from the limitations of traditional web development. It also allows developers to employ languages like C++ or Rust to perform high-efficiency computations and animations, offering near-native performance within the browser environment.

Wasm’s polyglot programming capability and component model are two of its flagship capabilities. The idea of leveraging the strengths of various programming languages within a unified application environment seemed like the next leap in software development. Wasm offers the potential to leverage the unique strengths of various programming languages within a single application environment, promoting a more efficient and versatile development process. For instance, developers could leverage Rust's speed for performance-critical components and .NET's comprehensive library support for business logic to optimize both development efficiency and application performance. 

This led me to Spin, an open-source tool for the creation and deployment of Wasm applications in cloud environments. To test Wasm’s polyglot programming capabilities, I experimented with the plugins and middleware models. I divided the application business logic into one component, and the other component with the Spin component supported the host capabilities (I/O, random, socket, etc.) to work with the host. Finally, I composed with http-auth-middleware, an existing component model from Spin for OAuth 2.0, and wrote more components for logging, rate limit, etc. All of them were composed together into one app and run on the host world (Component Model).

Cloud-Native Coffeeshop App

The first app I wrote using WebAssembly was an event-driven microservices coffeeshop app written in Golang and deployed using Nomad, Consul Connect, Vault, and Terraform (you can see it on my GitHub). I was curious about how it would work with Kubernetes, and then Dapr. I expanded it and wrote several use cases with Dapr such as entire apps with Spin, polyglot apps (Spin and other container apps with Docker), Spin apps with Dapr, and others. What I like about it is the speed of start-up time (it’s very quick to get up and running), and the size of the app – it looks like a tiny but powerful app. 

The WebAssembly ecosystem has matured a lot in the past year as it relates to enterprise projects. For the types of cloud-native projects I’d like to pursue, it would benefit from a more developed support system for stateful applications, as well as an integrated messaging system between components. I would love to see more capabilities that my enterprise customers need such as gRPC or other communication protocols (Spin currently only supports HTTP), data processing and transformation like data pipelines, a multi-threading mechanism, CQRS, polyglot programming language aggregations (internal modular monolith style or external microservices style), and content negotiation (XML, JSON, Plain-text).

We also need real-world examples demonstrating Wasm’s capabilities to tackle enterprise-level challenges, fostering a better understanding and wider technology adoption. We can see how well ZEISS does from their presentation at KubeCon in Paris last month. I would like to see more and more companies like them involved in this game, then, from the developer perspective, we will benefit a lot. Not only can we easily develop WebAssembly apps, but many enterprise scenarios shall also be addressed, and we will work together to make WebAssembly more handy and effective. 

The WebAssembly Community

Sharing my journey with the WebAssembly community has been a rewarding part of my exploration, especially with the Spin community who have been so helpful in sharing best practices and new ideas. Through tutorials and presentations at community events, I've aimed to contribute to the collective understanding of WebAssembly and cloud-native development, and I hope to see more people sharing their experiences. I will continue creating tutorials and educational content, as well as diving into new projects using WebAssembly to inspire and educate others about its potential. I would encourage anyone getting started to get involved in the Wasm community of your choice to accelerate your journey.

WebAssembly’s Cloud-Native Future

I feel positive about the potential for WebAssembly to change how we do application development, particularly in the cloud-native space. I’d like to explore how Wasm could underpin the development of hybrid cloud platforms and domain-specific applications. One particularly exciting prospect is the potential for building an e-commerce platform based on WebAssembly, leveraging its cross-platform capabilities and performance benefits to offer a superior user experience. The plugin model existed for a long time in the e-commerce world (see what Shopify did), and with WebAssembly’s component model, we can build the application with polyglot programming languages such as Rust, Go, TypeScript, .NET, Java, PHP, etc. 

WebAssembly 2.0 supports the development of more complex and interactive web applications, opening the door for new use cases such as serverless stateless functions, data transformation, and the full-pledge of web API functionalities, moving into edge devices (some embedded components). New advancements like WASI 3.0 with asynchronous components are bridging the gaps. I eagerly anticipate the further impact of WebAssembly on our approaches to building and deploying applications. We’re just getting started.