Method and apparatus for hardware acceleration in heterogeneous distributed computing

A server for a distributed computing system comprising multiple types of processors, the server comprising:

• a catalog module configured to maintain a first data structure relating function implementations and compatible processor types for said function implementations;
• a resource management module configured to provide a second data structure identifying available processors in said distributed computing system;
• a resource orchestrator module configured to:
• receive a request from a client device for execution of a function;
• retrieve, from said first data structure said compatible processor types for implementations of said function;
• match said available processors to said retrieved compatible processor types to define candidate processor types;
• said server configured to generate a provisioning instruction for allocating a processor, from the available processors, of a selected one of said candidate processor types for execution of said function.

A distributed computing system comprising:

• a plurality of resource servers having processors of a plurality of types;
• a master server in communication with said resource servers, said master server comprising:
• a catalog module configured to maintain a first data structure relating function implementations and compatible processor types for said function implementations;
• a resource management module configured to provide a second data structure identifying available processors in said distributed computing system;
• a resource orchestrator module configured to:
• receive a request from a client device for execution of a function;
• retrieve, from said first data structure said compatible processor types for implementations of said function;
• match said available processors to said retrieved compatible processor types to define candidate processor types;
• said master server configured to generate a provisioning instruction for allocating a processor, from the available processors, of a selected one of said candidate processor types for execution of said function.