Building serverless applications with Apache OpenWhisk and IBM Cloud Functions

© 2017 IBM Corporation l Interconnect 2017
Building serverless applications
with Apache OpenWhisk
and IBM Cloud Functions
@DanielKrook
Daniel Krook

Software Engineer & Developer Advocate
github.com/krook/functions17

IBM Cloud Functions powered by Apache OpenWhisk@DanielKrook github.com/krook/functions17
Increasingfocusonbusinesslogic
Decreasing concern (and control) over stack implementation
Bare Metal
VM VM
VM
Virtual machines
Functions
Containers
Serverless developers focus more on code, less on infrastructure

Monolithic
Application
Break-down into
microservices
Make each
microservice HA
Protect against
regional outage
Region A
Region B
Microservices can be hard to manage at scale

Emerging workloads are a good ﬁt for event-driven programming
Execute logic in response to database change
Perform analytics on sensor input messages
Provide cognitive computing via chatbots
Schedule tasks performed for a short time
Invoke autoscaled APIs and mobile backends

Memory
allocated
(MB)
Time executing
(milliseconds)
Instances
executing
simultaneously
(count)
Cloud resource cost
better matches
business value gained
Not a silver bullet, but this can result in
substantial savings for many workloads
New cost models more accurately charge for usage

OpenWhisk is a
cloud platform that
executes code in
response to events
OpenWhisk enables these serverless, event-driven workloads
Provides serverless deployment and operations model
Runs code only on-demand on a per-request basis
Optimized utilization, ﬁne-grained metering at any scale
Flexible, extensible, polyglot programming model
Open source and open ecosystem (Apache Incubator)
Ability to run in public, private, and hybrid models

Developers work with triggers, actions, rules, and packages
Data sources define events
they emit as Triggers.
Developers map Actions to
Triggers via Rules.
Packages provide integration
with external services.
T
A
P
R

Apache
Incubator
OpenWhisk is built on solid open source foundations

Apache
Incubator
The OpenWhisk ecosystem is growing

Use Apache OpenWhisk via IBM Cloud Functions: bluemix.net/openwhisk
wsk CLI

IBM Cloud Functions provides management, tooling, and monitoring

IBM Cloud Functions also provides included API gateway integration

Apache OpenWhisk
programming model

Results
Developers work with packages, triggers, actions, and rules
Package
(feed)
Packages provide integration
with external event sources
P
Trigger
(event)
T
Data sources deﬁne events
they emit as Triggers
Rule (map)R
Action
(function)
A
Developers map Actions
to Triggers via Rules
Data sources define events
they emit as Triggers.
Developers map Actions to
Triggers via Rules.
T
A
R

Triggers
A class of events that can occurT
Social events
Data changes
Device readings Location updates
User input

Actions
Code that runs in response to an event
(that is, an event handler)
A

Actions
Can be written in a variety of languages, such as
JavaScript, Python, Java, PHP, and Swift
A
function main(params) {
return { message: 'Hello, ' + params.name + ' from ' + params.place };
};

Actions
Or any other language by packaging with DockerA

Actions
Can be composed to create sequences
that increase flexibility and foster reuse
A
AA := A1 + A2 + A3
AB := A2 + A1 + A3
AC := A3 + A1 + A2

Rules
An association of a trigger to an action
in a many to many mapping.
R
R := T A

Packages
A shared collection of triggers and actionsP
A
A read
write
T changes A translate A forecast
A post
T topic
Open
Source A myAction
T myFeed
Yours
T commit
Third
Party

Apache OpenWhisk
in action

OpenWhisk awaits events, fetches mapped code, runs it in a container
Pool of actions
Swift DockerJS
Trigger
1
Running
action
Running
action
Running
action
3
OpenWhisk
Engine
2 A
T
AAA

Demo 1: Your ﬁrst trigger, action, and rule
$ wsk action create handler handler.js
$ wsk action invoke --blocking handler
$ wsk trigger create every-20-seconds
--feed /whisk.system/alarms/alarm
--param cron "*/20 * * * * *"
--param maxTriggers 30
$ wsk rule create
invoke-periodically
every-20-seconds
handler
Trigger
1
Running
action
2
T
A
1. Cron syntax alarm
2. Log the current time
$ wsk activation poll

Demo 2: Database change triggered action

Demo 3: HTTP API request triggered action

Other simple apps, working solutions, more complex uses

Managed OpenWhisk with
IBM Cloud Functions
bluemix.net/openwhisk
Delivered as 
Open source via Apache
openwhisk.org
Get started with Cloud Functions, or explore the open source project
github.com/openwhisk
slack.openwhisk.org
twitter.com/openwhisk
medium.com/openwhisk

Building serverless applications with Apache OpenWhisk and IBM Cloud Functions

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