Wasimoff: Distributed Computation Offloading Using WebAssembly in the Browser

A. Semjonov, H. Bornholdt, J. Edinger, G. Russo Russo

Proc. of *LESS '24 (co-located with PerCom '24)

Recently, there is a growing trend where end-users personally engage in computationally-intensive applications, particularly in domains such as AI, AR/VR, and simulation. Consequently, there arises an increasing demand to enhance the capabilities of local devices by offloading computational work to remote resources, which can also be provided by end users. To address the requirements of modern peer-to-peer (P2P) offloading architectures, we have developed Wasimoff—an innovative browser-based framework designed for dynamic volunteer computing. Leveraging WebAssembly, applications can securely run in an isolated browser environment. Device owners can effortlessly share their available CPU cycles and participate in the collaborative network by accessing a designated URL in their browser. To assess Wasimoff’s performance, we conducted a real-world evaluation with devices located in both Germany and the USA. The results affirm Wasimoff’s ability to scale linearly as the system’s entities increase. Moreover, Wasimoff consistently maintains execution speed even under congested system conditions.