Compute@Edge with CLI, Terraform API & Language Support | Fastly

Now running production traffic and with the introduction of powerful new functionality and tooling, our serverless compute environment, Compute, today takes a leap forward in delivering on the promise of highly performant, secure, and globally distributed serverless computing. 

We’ve already explored how Compute is addressing the problem of cold start times with execution times 100 times faster than other serverless solutions, and how we’ve brought observability to the forefront of our serverless compute environment with logging, tracing capabilities, and granular, real-time metrics. Today's release introduces enhanced CLI functionality, Terraform API support, additional language support, and more, making Compute the most developer-centric serverless option yet — and helping you move to the edge faster, work the way you want, and boost the velocity of your development.

With these additions, Compute moves out of beta — with customers now pushing production traffic on the environment, ranging from waiting room tokens, dynamic edge personalization, authentication at the edge, full serverless applications, and more — and bringing high-performance serverless to the edge. Let’s explore what’s new.

What’s new for Compute?

Move to the edge faster
One of the factors that introduces hesitation about moving to the edge is the thought that it’ll be too difficult to get started. We’re alleviating that concern with resources and tools that empower you to move to the edge faster.

Our new, streamlined CLI experience empowers you to upload and deploy code right from the CLI to streamline and accelerate workflow. We’ve also made our Developer Hub the one-stop shop for getting started with Compute. It’s packed with recipes, templates, and starter kits that ease the path to the edge. 

Build the way you want
Building on the flexibility and developer empowerment Fastly’s known for, we’ve made improvements to Compute that support you in working the way you want. 

We’ve expanded language support to include both Rust and AssemblyScript (currently in beta), which means you can write in the language you feel comfortable using — this also brings Compute one step closer to its language-agnostic future. 

And with observability now in the UI/API, stats and errors can be monitored and managed via Compute, supporting CI/CD and developer workflows, so no matter what you’re building, you have unprecedented visibility at your fingertips.

Execute with velocity
Empowering you to iterate faster and provide a tight feedback loop is critical to the Compute development processes. In addition to code execution startup times measured in microseconds and observability and critical visibility delivered in seconds, we’ve also added additional features that will play well with your current DevOps and CI/CD environments. 

With WebAssembly’s portability, you can work on a variety of operating systems and instruction set architectures, both on and off browser. Plus, a standardized system interface (WASI) gives you the flexibility to use your language’s standard library across operating systems instead of relying solely on proprietary interfaces in each environment. 

We’re also doubling down on our investment in Terraform. With Fastly’s Terraform provider, you can treat Fastly infrastructure as code to rapidly program, configure, and provision infrastructure.

What’s next for Compute?

These improvements give you an instantly available, high-performance environment, and the security and reliability you need at scale, all delivered with a user experience we think you’ll delight in as much as we do.

Stay tuned for a coming blog post where we explore what customers are building with Compute, and in the meantime, sign up to receive updates from the edge

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3 min read

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Tyler McMullen is CTO at Fastly, where he’s responsible for the system architecture and leads the company’s technology vision. As part of the founding team, Tyler built the first versions of Fastly’s Instant Purging system, API, and Real-time Analytics. A self-described technology curmudgeon, he has experience in everything from web design to kernel development, and loathes all of it. Especially distributed systems.

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