Hybrid Runtime for Cloud-Native Deployment in High-Performance IoT Edge

The increasing hardware heterogeneity in edge systems creates new challenges for developers, who must navigate the complexities of deploying applications across hybrid platforms. While cloud-native technologies has simplified deployment of Linux applications, embedded applications have traditionally relied on highly tailored approaches. In this paper, we explore a new deployment model for hybrid systems combining Arm Cortex-A and Arm Cortex-M/R cores, bridging containerized cloud-native approaches with embedded systems. We present a proof-of-concept implementation where applications are deployed on the Cortex-M core within a hybrid system directly from a Cortex-A processor running Linux, using cloud-native orchestration tools. This paper covers the motivation for hybrid-runtime with an end-to-end example demonstrating its effectiveness in real-world applications, the hybrid-runtime architecture, and deployment model.