Robert Cordingly

PhD Student, Computer Science & Systems · University of Washington Tacoma

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About

I'm a PhD student at the University of Washington Tacoma, advised by Prof. Wes Lloyd. My research builds tools and models that make serverless computing platforms more observable, predictable, and accessible. My goal is to empower developers to easily understand cost, performance, and infrastructure trade-offs of serverless platforms.

Across roughly twenty publications I've worked on serverless performance modeling, Function-as-a-Service observability, multi-cloud "sky" computing, and investigating the carbon implications of global workload distribution. Alongside research, my work focuses on creating open source tools that aid the research community in observing serverless platforms, with the Serverless Application Analytics Framework (SAAF) and the FaaS Experiment Toolkit (FaaSET) being the most notable tools. I am also a Predoctoral Instructor in the Graduate Certificate in Software Development Engineering program, where I've taught TCSS 501 (Algorithms) and TCSS 505 (Systems).

I completed my M.S. (2020) and B.S. (2018, Cum Laude) in Computer Science & Systems at UW Tacoma.

Research Interests

Serverless computing Cloud performance modeling FaaS observability Sky / multi-cloud computing Federated computing Green & sustainable computing Developer tooling for distributed systems

Open-Source Projects

SAAF — Serverless Application Analytics Framework

A Function-as-a-Service profiling framework for Node.js, Python, and Java functions deployed to AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and Azure. Captures fine-grained runtime metrics that enable platform performance evaluation and cost / performance modeling.

github.com/wlloyduw/SAAF · Tutorial

FaaSET — Function-as-a-Service Experiment Toolkit

A Python framework that integrates with Jupyter notebooks to streamline serverless development — deployment, testing, benchmarking, and analysis from a single workspace. Used in tutorials and demos.

Open in Google Colab

FaaS Runner

A client application that creates and automates reproducible experiments across Function-as-a-Service cloud platforms. Recently extended into Distributed FaaSRunner for multi-node, multi-threaded endpoint testing (IC2E 2025).

github.com/wlloyduw/SAAF/test

EasyRL Cloud

Cloud deployment for EasyRL — a framework for training, testing, and experimenting with reinforcement learning models.

github.com/easyRL/easyRL-v0

Publications

Bold author names indicate me; First author tags mark first-author works. Each entry links to the PDF, Slides, conference video, and indexed venue (ACM DL / IEEE Xplore) where available.

2025

Large Language Models for Serverless Function Generation: An Investigation on FaaS Performance Chen, X., Cordingly, R., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 11th International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WOSC 2025) — Dec 2025

Workshop Paper 7 pages

PDF Scholar

Sky Computing for Serverless: Infrastructure Assessment to Support Performance Enhancement Cordingly, R., Chen, X., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 18th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2025) — Dec 2025

Full Conference Paper First author 10 pages Acc. 31%

PDF Slides ACM DL Scholar

Distributed FaaSRunner: Enabling Reproducible Multi-node, Multi-threaded Function-as-a-Service Endpoint Testing Kondo, T., Bomhold, A., Cordingly, R., Zhao, D., Lloyd, W. 13th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2025) — Sep 2025

Short Paper 8 pages Acc. 40.8%

PDF Slides IEEE Xplore Scholar

GraphQL vs. REST: Investigating Performance and Scalability for Serverless Database Abstraction Jin, R., Cordingly, R., Zhao, D., Lloyd, W. 13th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2025) — Sep 2025

Short Paper 7 pages Acc. 40.8%

PDF Slides Scholar

2024

Predicting ARM64 Serverless Function Runtime: Leveraging Function Profiling for Generalized Performance Models Chen, X., Cordingly, R., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 17th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Utility and Cloud Computing (UCC 2024) — Dec 2024

Full Conference Paper 10 pages Acc. 35%

PDF Slides Scholar

GraphQL vs. REST: A Performance and Cost Investigation for Serverless Applications Jin, R., Cordingly, R., Zhao, D., Lloyd, W. 10th International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WOSC 2024) — Dec 2024

Workshop Paper 6 pages

PDF Slides ACM DL Scholar

Towards Low-Cost Global Highly Available Large Container-Based Serverless Functions Kaur, J., Cordingly, R., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 2024 IEEE Cloud Summit, pp. 7–12 — Jun 2024

Full Conference Paper 6 pages Best Paper

PDF Slides IEEE Xplore Scholar

2023

Towards Serverless Sky Computing: An Investigation on Global Workload Distribution to Mitigate Carbon Intensity, Network Latency, and Cost Cordingly, R., Kaur, J., Dwivedi, D., Lloyd, W. 2023 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2023), pp. 59–69 — Sep 2023

Full Conference Paper First author 11 pages Acc. 33.3%

PDF Slides Scholar

Enabling Serverless Sky Computing Cordingly, R., Lloyd, W. 2023 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2023), PhD Symposium, pp. 232–235 — Sep 2023

PhD Symposium First author 4 pages

PDF Slides Scholar

Addressing Serverless Computing Vendor Lock-In through Cloud Service Abstraction Mo, D., Cordingly, R., Chinn, D., Lloyd, W. 2023 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Computing Technology and Science (CloudCom 2023), pp. 193–199 — Dec 2023

Full Conference Paper 7 pages

PDF Slides Scholar

X86 vs. ARM64: An Investigation of Factors Influencing Serverless Performance Chen, X., Cordingly, R., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 9th International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WOSC 2023) — Dec 2023

Workshop Paper 6 pages

PDF Slides ACM DL Scholar

Understanding Container Isolation: An Investigation of Performance Implications of Container Runtimes Bhaia, N., Cordingly, R., Hung, L.H., Lloyd, W. 9th International Workshop on Container Technologies and Container Clouds (WoC 2023), pp. 7–12 — Dec 2023

Workshop Paper 6 pages

PDF Slides ACM DL Scholar

2022

Function Memory Optimization for Heterogeneous Serverless Platforms with CPU Time Accounting Cordingly, R., Xu, S., Lloyd, W. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2022) — Sep 2022

Full Conference Paper First author 12 pages

PDF Slides Scholar

FaaSET: A Jupyter Notebook to Streamline Every Facet of Serverless Development Cordingly, R., Lloyd, W. 5th Workshop on Hot Topics in Cloud Computing Performance (HotCloudPerf 2022), co-located with ICPE 2022 — Apr 2022

Workshop Paper First author 4 pages

PDF Slides Video Scholar

Characterizing X86 and ARM Serverless Performance Variation: A Natural Language Processing Case Study Lambion, D., Schmitz, R., Cordingly, R., Heydari, N., Lloyd, W. Companion of the 2022 ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2022), pp. 69–75 — Jul 2022

Workshop Paper 7 pages

PDF Slides Video Scholar

2021

Implications of Alternative Serverless Application Control Flow Methods Quinn, S., Cordingly, R., Lloyd, W. 7th International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WoSC 2021), pp. 17–22 — Dec 2021

Workshop Paper 6 pages

PDF Slides Video ACM DL Scholar

Enhancing Observability of Serverless Computing with the Serverless Application Analytics Framework Cordingly, R., Heydari, N., Yu, H., Hoang, V., Sadeghi, Z., Lloyd, W. Companion of the ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2021), pp. 161–164 — Apr 2021

Tutorial Paper First author 4 pages

PDF Slides Tutorial Scholar

2020

The Serverless Application Analytics Framework: Enabling Design Trade-off Evaluation for Serverless Software Cordingly, R., Yu, H., Hoang, V., Sadeghi, Z., Foster, D., Perez, D., Hatchett, R., Lloyd, W. 6th International Workshop on Serverless Computing (WoSC 2020), pp. 67–72 — Dec 2020

Workshop Paper First author 6 pages

PDF Slides Talk Demo Lightning ACM DL Scholar

Predicting Performance and Cost of Serverless Computing Functions with SAAF Cordingly, R., Shu, W., Lloyd, W.J. DASC/PiCom/CBDCom/CyberSciTech 2020, pp. 640–649 — Aug 2020

Full Conference Paper First author 10 pages Acc. 27%

PDF Slides Video IEEE Xplore Scholar

Implications of Programming Language Selection for Serverless Data Processing Pipelines Cordingly, R., Yu, H., Hoang, V., Perez, D., Foster, D., Sadeghi, Z., Hatchett, R., Lloyd, W.J. DASC/PiCom/CBDCom/CyberSciTech 2020, pp. 704–711 — Aug 2020

Short Paper First author 8 pages Acc. 40%

PDF Slides Video IEEE Xplore Scholar

Master's Thesis

Serverless Performance Modeling with CPU Time Accounting and the Serverless Application Analytics Framework Cordingly, R. M.S. Thesis, University of Washington — 2021

UW ResearchWorks

Teaching

2023 – Present Predoctoral Instructor · UW Tacoma Instructor of Record for TCSS 501 and TCSS 505 in the Graduate Certificate in Software Development Engineering program. Average course evaluation of 4.6 / 5.

Fall 2022 Python Bootcamp Instructor · GC-SDE Program, UW Tacoma Designed and taught an introductory Python bootcamp; led a recitation lab session for TCSS 501 and TCSS 502.

2018 – 2021 Grader · TCSS 422 Computer Operating Systems, UW Tacoma Three quarters of grading for Prof. Wes Lloyd, supporting cohorts of up to 68 students.

Honors & Awards

Nov 2025UWT Graduate School Conference Presentation Award

Dec 2024Carwein-Andrews Distinguished Fellow

Nov 2023UWT Graduate School Conference Presentation Award

Nov 2023ASUWT Conference and Training Fund

Jan 2023William W. Philip Endowed Fellowship

Dec 2018UWT Graduate Merit Scholarship · School of Engineering & Technology

Apr 20181st of 54 submissions, GameMaker Community Jam #8 — Best Concept

20192nd of 21 teams, Hack@UWT (Watchdog: 3D Printer Safety System)

Honor SocietiesUpsilon Pi Epsilon · Golden Key International · Phi Theta Kappa

Professional Service

Reviewer: 32nd Internation European Conference on Parallel and Distributed Computing (Euro-Par 2026) · Future Generation Computer Systems — The International Journal of eScience (2025) · 15th ACM/SPEC International Conference on Performance Engineering (ICPE 2024) · 12th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2024) · 11th IEEE International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E 2023).