Functions as a Service: Serverless Framework for Docker and Kubernetes

by ingve • 9 years ago

160 35 9 years ago

rcarmo3• 9 years ago

In case someone is looking for a way to run and deploy this to a public cloud (in my case Azure), there is an extant pull request here that will set up a dynamically resizable Swarm cluster:

https://github.com/get-faas/labs-azure-scaling-template/pull...

This allows the FaaS runtime to dynamically allocate more Swarm nodes based on CPU load (indirectly, using Azure VM scale sets).

I've been meaning to see how I could tie in Azure Container Instances to FaaS, but currently lack the time (and to do that it would need to cleanly separate the admin UI from function endpoints, something that wasn't implemented yet a few weeks ago).

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

Function endpoints take a route of /function or /async-function and all administration is via /system/functions route and the UI is hosted at /ui - so you have all the separation in place.

There's an open issue for ACI - would be great if you wanted to contribute to the project. https://github.com/alexellis/faas/issues/117

rcarmo3• 9 years ago

I meant separating the admin UI completely, into its own process/container and IP/port, distinct from the reverse proxy.

Route separation just means I can DoS the admin UI by invoking functions repeatedly - which will eventually happen even with "production" loads.

mobiletelephone• 9 years ago

This looks very interesting. Does anyone have any experience with this for C++ functions vs AWS Lambda?

amq• 9 years ago

Is it realistic to keep a complex system built around functions and microservices in a small organization?

vanviegen• 9 years ago

Why would you want to? Honest question.

hbt3• 9 years ago

distributed computing

by having a function with a rest API in a container, you can scale it on demand with no infrastructure management

hbt3• 9 years ago

at the moment. we lack the software for proper faas orchestration

I do believe with docker faas rest swagger, we will have a solution which allows you to write a function, define its input and output with a schema like swagger, define its dependencies with docker, expose it as a service rest, call at scale with faas.

this also makes API discovery and reliability much easier

DJN• 9 years ago

Well chosen name.

Two questions:

1. How does this square up with the efforts within the Serverless community? https://github.com/serverless/serverless

2. Does OpenFaas assume that the smallest unit of work for each function or domain of functions is always a unique container? In other words, does it support scenarios where one needs to deploy a new function into an existing/running container?

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

The Serverless Inc project helps you deploy to closed-source cloud vendor function products using YAML. OpenFaaS is an open-source Serverless framework to do largely the same thing, but you can use cloud servers or your own on-prem equipment. Checkout the intro for more comparisons to other projects https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service...

zokier• 9 years ago

Is this just for web stuff? One of the key aspects (imo) about Lambda is how it integrates to other AWS services, allowing the code to react to all sorts of events.

fohara• 9 years ago

Seems similar to OpenWhisk: https://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk . The built-in metrics reporting of OpenFaas looks useful though.

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

For a great live demo of the auto-scaling and metrics shown in Grafana see my video from Dockercon's Cool Hacks closing ceremony - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h2VTE9WnZs&t=1058s

keithwhor• 9 years ago

This is great stuff! If anybody's looking further up the stack and executing functions via HTTP / etc. via a gateway, we've developed a formal specification called FaaSlang [1] that includes type-safety mechanisms and standardized error reporting.

This can be connected above your FaaS provisioning system; whether it's in front of cloud-native offerings like Lambda or Azure Functions, or you're running a system like OpenFaaS yourself. FaaSlang defines execution semantics, it is not opinionated about where functions are stored or how they're run.

[1] https://github.com/faaslang/faaslang

hbt3• 9 years ago

this is pretty cool. you can also convert it to swagger and restify your function.

the main benefit is annotations in comments

droelf_2• 9 years ago

Last time I checked (a couple of minutes ago), NONE of those "serverless" frameworks were truly serverless. Running your stuff or even your "functions" in the "cloud" is still running it on a server. Just because you do not know which specific server is running it at a given time does not make it "serverless". Why is it so hard to use the correct term?

ec1096852• 9 years ago

Why doesn't not caring what server a function is running on and allowing a piece of code to jump from one host to another not constitute serverless, a term that has come to mean exactly that?

droelf_2• 9 years ago

Because it's still using a server. large scale distributed resource abstracting server network (short lsd-rasn) or something along these lines would be more accurate.

cwilkes• 9 years ago

Do you also rail against "wireless" phones as there's wires involved somewhere?

It is called serverless as in the ideal state you let the scaling of the server be handled by someone else. Just like with cell phones you only care about the last bit before it gets to you.

Can_Not• 9 years ago

No, he calls his phone "towerless", "networkless", and "carrierless" because he doesn't personally own or manage his own towers, networks, or carriers.

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

We spoke about this at the CNCF serverless WG session a couple of days ago. I think there was consensus that the term Serverless applies to an architectural pattern and is not meant to be taken literally (as with so many other design patterns - bridge, factory, facade etc). Serverless also refers to the experience the developer gets of "packaging and deploying" the application without worrying about scale.

errm• 9 years ago

Ultimately "serverless" is always going to involve a computer of some sort somewhere, most likely a server ...

Functions as a Service is a much better description of the pattern... As an Ops person we often get a lot of requests for I need this (small) thing to happen when x... in the past we might have managed this with severs (probably called misc-{1..n}) running simple scripts as cron jobs...

I see "serverless" as a much better way to manage this sort of stuff ... and FaaS is especially good for this since anything that can go inside a container can be a function, so all the little bits of bash and perl and ruby and whatever script stuff just get chucked at this thing and just work...

Futurebot• 9 years ago

"Just-in-time server" would have been a much better name

carimura• 9 years ago

"correct" is never what wins. cloud computing?

dundercoder• 9 years ago

Is the goal of Lambda/OpenFaaS to basically be cgi/bin in a box? (Container) Would sandboxed cgi/fcgi be faster at forking than spinning up a container?

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

That's not far off what's happening, but in containers. For a deeper dive on the mechanics of OpenFaaS checkout the intro https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service... and then the watchdog README here - https://github.com/alexellis/faas/tree/master/watchdog

edude03• 9 years ago

Also checkout Funktion

_Marak_2• 9 years ago

If anyone is interested in doing this without the additional requirements of Docker and Kubernetes check out Microcule.

https://github.com/stackvana/microcule

rcarmo3• 9 years ago

This is cute. And it looks like it can leverage Docker as well, with a few tweaks. I especially like the agnosticism of it.

_Marak_2• 9 years ago

Thanks! I built this by refactoring out the core technology which hook.io uses in production and put it into a separate open-source project.

By design, Microcule operates without needing containers or virtual machines. It's up to the user how they wish to isolate their services. I have heard from a few users who have successfully incorporated Microcule with Docker in production.

see: https://github.com/stackvana/microcule#no-containers

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

Hi, OpenFaaS author here - it feels like I'm late to the party here. I can see lots of folks chiming-in with their projects which you are welcome to do. I agree with you that this is a confusing landscape with lots of options. Here's my introduction to OpenFaaS (and Serverless), the top 3 new features and what's coming next: https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service...

If you have 10-15 minutes you can just jump in with your own serverless function in Python with this guide - https://blog.alexellis.io/first-faas-python-function/

alexellisuk7• 9 years ago

I presented Open/FaaS at Dockercon in April showing an Amazon Echo dot with voice skills, integration with 3rd party data, GitHub/S3 and auto-scaling in response to demand - it's a nice high-level overview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h2VTE9WnZs&t=1058s

Functions as a Service: Serverless Framework for Docker and Kubernetes

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