0ms cold starts?

[jfbaro]

Hi there!

I have been working with FaaS (and Serverless in general) for the last 5 years (using a different Cloud provider), and we managed to reduce the Cold Starts to a point where they don't affect the user in any significant way. I have just moved to a new job and my current employer is committed to GCP (which I really enjoy), but I found the cold starts for Cloud Functions (node.js) pretty high, generally over 2 seconds. Are there new features in the pipeline to make Cloud Functions cold starts (much) shorter? I know some companies (using V8 isolates, not containers) are able to get 0ms cold starts for JS (not NODE though) and Rust (WASM), and I truly believe GCP is in a better position than the 2 other major cloud providers to pull this off.

Thanks

[rachelt1 · Accepted solution]

Hi! Great news, we have minimum instances for Cloud Functions currently in private preview. You can sign up using this form.

Minimum instances will help with cold starts and will launch in public preview next week, along with documentation. Please reach out if you have additional questions. 

[jfbaro]

Hello, this is great news! I'll look at this and see the performance and cost implications. But, please, keep working on evolving Google Serverless products and never stop shortening the cold start of Serverless services.

Thanks