Cosmonic Announces 0.50 Release of wasmCloud -- Building a Stronger Foundation for Universally Portable, Secure-by-Default Distributed Applications

- Hybrid Elixir/Rust foundation, enhanced developer experience, and support for Web runtimes headline 0.50 release

- wasmCloud closer to becoming the universal application runtime from cloud to edge and now 'far edge'

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Sep 28, 2021, 09:00 ET

ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 28, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- WebAssembly pioneer Cosmonic today announces the 0.50 release of wasmCloud. The distributed application framework and Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) Sandbox project was created for building universally portable cloud-native applications with WebAssembly that can plug into multi-cloud, multi-edge and now far-edge environments directly inside the browser.

The proliferation of over 21 billion internet-connected devices, diverse CPUs and endless combinations of operating systems and browsers means that truly portable applications are required to meet the imminent demand for secure, highly concurrent, real-time systems. WasmCloud 0.50 introduces a stronger, faster, more scalable foundation using proven Elixir/OTP technologies, which frees up the community to focus on core feature development. The 0.50 release further enhances wasmCloud's boiler-plate free developer experience and introduces support for deploying and executing actors in the browser.

"Today's development and operations teams face significant challenges delivering distributed real-time systems like WhatsApp or Discord that are designed to serve millions of concurrent users. Compounded further by diverse CPU architectures, development efforts are inhibited and desired benefits are not easily achieved," explained Liam Randall, Cosmonic founder and CNCF Cloud Native Wasm Day Program committee chair. "We're ruthlessly focused on simplifying these challenges. Our goal is to enable developers to deliver truly portable applications, both in terms of where the applications execute and the capabilities they deliver -- thus bringing the joy back to distributed application development."

Key product features of wasmCloud 0.50 include:

Hybrid Elixir/Rust Foundation

Combines Elixir's and OTP's ability to run scalable, highly available distributed applications with Rust's ecosystem for safe systems-level functionality (e.g., memory, thread, and data safety).
Supports more actors, and capability providers written in any language, giving developers freedom of choice with less boilerplate.
Embraces NATS JetStream technology to introduce a durable, persistent cache for managing lattice metadata across multiple disparate infrastructures.
Self-healing lattice network can recover from catastrophic situations, even the termination of every host.

Improved Developer Experience

Replaces wasmCloud's command line Read-Eval-Print-Loop (REPL) with a web-based dashboard allowing developers to view and administer their entire lattice from a single browser tab.
Introduces command-line tooling that enables developers to generate new actors, providers, and interfaces automatically with ready-to-use scaffolding, so developers can go from concept to running actor in seconds.
Adopts Smithy, an open-source language for defining services and SDKs that has been widely used within Amazon to model and generate code for over 250 APIs. Smithy is used to define wasmCloud's capability contracts and remote interfaces, and supports wasmCloud's contract-first design philosophy, which is essential for reliable, planet-scale distributed services. Interface-driven code generation avoids boilerplate and eliminates unnecessary friction from the development process.
Improves the developer experience for creating actors and providers with better code generation and interface definition support.

Support for New Runtimes

Introduces preliminary support for a new JavaScript wasmCloud host. Establishing support for over 3 billion Google Chrome, Apple Safari, and Mozilla Firefox browsers as a deployment target for wasmCloud's portable actors brings the project closer to delivering a universal computing substrate where actors can be deployed anywhere, including at the far edge in IoT devices too small for Linux or K3s.

"We have a keen intuition for emerging technologies that change the way we do things for the better," said Stuart Harris, founder and chief scientist, Red Badger, a London-based digital consultancy working with blue chip companies on their most challenging digital projects. "Having designed a proof-of-concept future state architecture for one of Europe's largest banks, we recognize that the combination of Kubernetes, servicemesh, wasmCloud, NATS and GitOps is a gamechanger for enterprises with complex multi-cloud, resiliency, security, compliance and portability requirements. wasmCloud 0.50 is where proven cloud native technologies come together to make magic happen."

Product Preview -- Release Party and Cloud Native Wasm Day
Developers interested in previewing wasmCloud 0.50 can register for Cosmonic's online release party hosted by Kevin Hoffman, wasmCloud founder and tech lead, on October 6th at 4:00 pm ET. Register at https://bit.ly/wasmCloud

Randall and the CNCF welcome the community to learn about the power and possibility of Cloud Native WebAssembly during 2021 Kubecon Cloud North America Native Wasm Day on Tuesday, October 12. Register for Cloud Native Wasm Day, here.

Supporting Resources

wasmCloud 0.50 documentation, getting started guide, and FAQs
Download wasmCloud 0.50 software on wasmcloud.dev
View the source code on github
Learn more about wasmCloud in the Linux Foundation's Training Classes.
Liam Randall is available for interviews (biography, image)
Liam Randall - 2 021 Kubecon EU Keynote - Cloud Native & WebAssembly: Better Together, Liam Randall - 2021 Kubecon Wasm Day Keynote - WebAssembly: The future of distributed computing

About Cosmonic
Founded by open-source veteran Liam Randall, Cosmonic is helping develop and promote wasmCloud, a universal runtime platform that enables developers to use cloud native technologies and WebAssembly to build portable, pluggable business logic that runs anywhere, including multi-cloud, multi-edge and far edge environments. For more information, visit wasmcloud.com.

Contact
[email protected]
+1 650-200-0292

SOURCE Cosmonic Corp