Home // CLOUD COMPUTING 2026, The Seventeenth International Conference on Cloud Computing, GRIDs, and Virtualization // View article
Authors:
Pallav Kumar Deb
Jorge Carola
Susmit Shegokar
Wolfgang Forstmeier
Keywords: cloud–edge–field continuum; orchestration; kubernetes; webassembly (WASM); constrained devices
Abstract:
The resource demands of cloud-native orchestration tools make it challenging to include last-mile devices, particularly embedded and on-field systems, in Cloud-to-Edge continuum deployments. This represents the final missing piece in achieving truly end-to-end orchestration across federated environments. This paper introduces a federated architecture that extends Kubernetes (K8s)-native orchestration beyond the Cloud-to-Edge continuum, reaching deeply embedded on-field devices such as actuators powered by single-board processors commonly found on industrial floors and in smart buildings. While K8s allows custom shims by leveraging WebAssembly (WASM) runtimes, it is not yet ready to be used on the constrained on-field devices due to its desired memory footprint. This paper introduces a splitted shim, built on the WASM Micro Runtime (WAMR). It decouples the runtime into a lightweight client-side agent and a proxy shim that can be deployed either on an edge node or in the cloud as a service, depending on deployment requirements. This proxy mediates communication with the K8s control plane, enabling orchestration without requiring Open Container Initiative (OCI) bundle support on the constrained device. The architecture is OS and platform-independent, supports heterogeneous environments, and drastically reduces the resource footprint, enabling scalable, cloud-native orchestration from centralized cloud infrastructure to edge gateways and minimalistic field devices.
Pages: 56 to 61
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2026
Publication date: April 19, 2026
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-4294
ISBN: 978-1-68558-373-6
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Dates: from April 19, 2026 to April 23, 2026