A presentation at Apache EU Roadshow in in Berlin, Germany by Lorna Jane Mitchell
Serverless Computing with Apache OpenWhisk Lorna Mitchell, IBM
What is Serverless? • Code snippet • Deployed to cloud • Executed in response to an event • Scaled on demand • Costs nothing when idle @lornajane
Where are the Servers? The servers are alive and well. (your function gets containerised, OpenWhisk grabs and runs it on demand in response to the registered triggers) @lornajane
Does Serverless Solve Real Problems? @lornajane
Does Serverless Solve Real Problems? Yes! * @lornajane
Does Serverless Solve Real Problems? Yes! * * maybe not all of them @lornajane
APIs and Microservices Serverless is a great fit for Microservices! Each endpoint (URL and verb combination) is a serverless action An API Gateway maps routes to actions Each endpoint is independent @lornajane
One-Off Endpoints No need to spin up a whole server just for your: • Alexa skill • mailing list/slack team signup • incoming webhook from GitHub/Twilio/Nexmo/Zapier @lornajane
Just Enough Backend Code Mobile and frontend experts often need some server-side code for APIs or secure Auth No sysadmin skills required @lornajane
Serverless and Data When data is atomic, there's so much we can do with our easy-entry, highly scalable serverless platforms. • Transform data • React to database changes or incoming data • Work with small volume, trickling data • Work with high volume, streaming data • Handle one-off data transformation or import @lornajane
Meet Apache OpenWhisk @lornajane
Meet Apache OpenWhisk • http://openwhisk.incubator.apache.org/ • Currently an incubator project, working towards graduation • Contributors from a variety of backgrounds @lornajane
Supported Technologies OpenWhisk is Open Source and extensible. It supports: • Java • NodeJS • PHP • Python • Swift Docker containers can also be deployed and run. @lornajane
Getting Started With Apache OpenWhisk @lornajane
OpenWhisk Vocabulary • trigger an event, such as an incoming HTTP request • rule map a trigger to an action • action a function, optionally with parameters • package collect actions and parameters together • sequence more than one action in a row • cold start time to run a fresh action @lornajane
Hello World in JS A main function, with a single parameter: exports . main
=
function ( args )
{
return ({ "body" :
"Hello, World!" }); }; Function must return an object or a Promise @lornajane
Parameters Parameters can be set: • at deploy time • at run time (including by the events that trigger them) CNCF project to standardise event params: https://github.com/cloudevents/spec @lornajane
Deploying to OpenWhisk Deploy code: wsk package update demo zip hello.zip index.js wsk action update --kind nodejs:6 demo/hello1 hello.zip Then run it: wsk action invoke --result demo/hello1 @lornajane
Web-Enabled Actions Deploy code: wsk package update demo zip hello.zip index.js wsk action update --kind nodejs:6 --web true demo/hello1 hello.zip Then get the URL and curl it: wsk action get --url demo/hello1 curl https://172.17.0.1/api/v1/web/guest/demo/hello1 @lornajane
More About Packages Packages allow us to: • group actions together • set parameters on packages, used by all actions Sequences can include actions from other packages @lornajane
Built In Packages There are some packages and actions available by default: • utils • cloudant • github • slack • websocket • samples @lornajane
Using Built-In Actions
As an example: there's a
wordCount
action in the
samples
package:
wsk -i action invoke --result /whisk.system/samples/wordCount
-p payload "A good way to ruin a fine walk"
Returns: 8
@lornajane
Using Sequences For example: notify Slack when a user registers @lornajane
Serverless and Apache OpenWhisk @lornajane
Resources • http://openwhisk.incubator.apache.org/ • https://www.ibm.com/cloud/functions • https://lornajane.net For more: "Serverless Microservices are the New Black" tomorrow afternoon @lornajane
Serverless technology is a way of deploying individual functions to the cloud and running them on demand. This makes them very easy to work with, isolated from one another, and also individually scalable. Come and learn how begin using Apache Openwhisk for your own applications such as APIs or chatbot integrations.
This session is recommended for tech leads and developers of all levels.
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