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OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

open-lambda.org

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Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#51

Post by spriggan3 »

sbarski wrote: post #50
spriggan3 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess it's like wireless... Something could be wireless from the perspective of the end user but there are still wires actually there. It's a bad analogy. As a developer you are supposed to know they are wires somewhere. That's why all this marketing is dangerous. the obfuscation which makes everything sound like "voodoo and black magic". > The developer doesn't have to deal with servers/infrastructure so for the…

I think we might be thinking about Serverless slightly differently. To me serverless is not just AWS Lambda. It's a broader theme that encompasses Function-as-a-Service technologies like Lambda and Backend-as-a-Service technologies like Firebase & Auth0. Combining FaaS, BaaS, and using certain techniques and patterns is what makes Serverless. As a developer I am plenty aware that there are servers - I don't feel that…

> However, when someone says that they have a serverless system I immediately understand what they are trying to say.

Obviously we don't as I don't consider the expression "serverless" accurate in describing what is really happening. Call it what it really is : pubsub, calling it "serverless" is misleading marketing.

> You don't need to scale the API Gateway

You still need API Gateway to communicate with the outside world, here is your server, you know exactly what I mean. What you call "serverless" didn't invent autoscaling in PAAS.

It's interesting by the way that you keep using product names "Lambda", "API Gateway" which aren't concepts but Amazon products. That's marketing. It's like calling all social networks "Facebooks". "Serverless" is a marketing device to sell Amazon services, I think people get it by now.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#52

Post by inopinatus »

spriggan3 wrote: post #49
inopinatus wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wrapper to fit Lambda into a client-server synchronous-invocation world is API Gateway. But Lambda was built as an event consumer e.g. listening to a SNS queue. If you look at the broader set of AWS services you have a full toolbox of event-driven pub/sub message/event-driven tools to play with: Lambda / Kinesis / S3 / DynamoDB / SNS / SQS / Cognito / IoT and more. It's enough of an integration & compute lego kit…

> The wrapper to fit Lambda into a client-server synchronous-invocation world is API Gateway. So yes, there is a server indeed. Why call it "serverless" then ? because one part of the stack uses pubsub ? then call that part a worker queue because that's what it is.

That's a separate service.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#53

Post by sbarski »

spriggan3 wrote: post #51
sbarski wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we might be thinking about Serverless slightly differently. To me serverless is not just AWS Lambda. It's a broader theme that encompasses Function-as-a-Service technologies like Lambda and Backend-as-a-Service technologies like Firebase & Auth0. Combining FaaS, BaaS, and using certain techniques and patterns is what makes Serverless. As a developer I am plenty aware that there are servers - I don't feel that…

> However, when someone says that they have a serverless system I immediately understand what they are trying to say. Obviously we don't as I don't consider the expression "serverless" accurate in describing what is really happening. Call it what it really is : pubsub, calling it "serverless" is misleading marketing. > You don't need to scale the API Gateway You still need API Gateway to communicate with the outside…

> It's interesting by the way that you keep using product names "Lambda", "API Gateway" which aren't concepts but Amazon products. That's marketing. It's like calling all social networks "Facebooks". "Serverless" is a marketing device to sell Amazon services, I think people get it by now.

Amazon is a leader in this area right now but let's not use them. We can talk about Microsoft, IBM, or Google. They use "serverless" to describe their products. Google calls cloud functions a "serverless platform" and "serverless microservices" (https://cloud.google.com/functions/).

Azure functions talk about "processing events with serverless code" and so on. I only meant to use Amazon is an example because people are more familiar with their products.

Serverless is just a descriptor for these kinds of technologies and patterns.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#54

Post by pmontra »

So, after having read the PDF I eventually realized that this is not a tool to cross develop and deploy to the three lambda clouds, but to self host your lambdas on your servers.

It's interesting and I might use it but I suggest to make it very clear on the home page of the project. The way it's designed now tells more about AWS, ECS and Azure than about the project itself.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#55

Post by Freak_NL »

sbarski wrote: post #45
spriggan3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And for all those who disagree with "Serverless", come to Serverlessconf London (london.serverlessconf.io) and we can debate it there. In fact, would love to see everyone there! Nobody disagree with anything but the marketing. "Serveless" is just an inaccurate description of what is actually going on. There is a server otherwise how do you communicate with the outside world? You need an API gateway to your pubsub a…

I am sure people have said this but it's "serverless" from the perspective of the user (who is a developer in this case). The developer doesn't have to deal with servers/infrastructure so for them the system is serverless. I guess it's like wireless... Something could be wireless from the perspective of the end user but there are still wires actually there. I honestly think that serverless is a lot less ambiguous and…

Both serverless and cloud are words that essentially mean that you are running back-end stuff on someone else's computer. That's not necessarily a problem, but these words appear chosen for their hype value and lack of actual semantic meaning. They are also irksome and downright impractical when you want to get down to what it really is or does due to all the marketing fluff and misinterpretation surrounding them.

If you want to talk nuts and bolts about some cool technology or interesting concept; why not use an unambiguous term that means just that one thing — e.g., platform-as-a-service (PaaS), function-as-a-service (FaaS), or simply a hosted solution.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#58

Post by nl »

blorgle wrote: post #5

If you're going to build serverless thing to take advantage of market hype why not at least try and build one that has data locality like ZeroVM/ZeroCloud ( http://www.zerovm.org/zerocloud.html ) and Manta ( https://www.joyent.com/manta )?

Have you tried ZeroVM?

It isn't exactly a simple thing. I looked at it and got some stuff working in it a while ago, and it certainly limits what you can do.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#59

Post by davidpatrick »

Mizza wrote: post #20

Author of Zappa[0] here - glad to see more F/OSS implementations in this space - see also OpenWhisk and I think there was another (IronIO? MetalIO? Something like that?) - but I think an important piece that's missing is a F/OSS implementation of API Gateway! That's part of the reason the AWS is still the leader of the pack IMO. [0] https://github.com/Miserlou/Zappa

Something I recently stumbled upon through a coding challenge was https://webtask.io/

Having used ApiGateway + AWSLambda + AWSCloudwatch, I found Webtask to be infinitey easier to use and deploy. The only downside of Webtask, for some users, is that it is all Javascript, where AWSLambda allows multiple languages.

Re: OpenLambda, a system for serverless computing

#60

Post by stephenr »

sbarski wrote: post #45
spriggan3 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And for all those who disagree with "Serverless", come to Serverlessconf London (london.serverlessconf.io) and we can debate it there. In fact, would love to see everyone there! Nobody disagree with anything but the marketing. "Serveless" is just an inaccurate description of what is actually going on. There is a server otherwise how do you communicate with the outside world? You need an API gateway to your pubsub a…

I am sure people have said this but it's "serverless" from the perspective of the user (who is a developer in this case). The developer doesn't have to deal with servers/infrastructure so for them the system is serverless. I guess it's like wireless... Something could be wireless from the perspective of the end user but there are still wires actually there. I honestly think that serverless is a lot less ambiguous and…

> I am sure people have said this but it's "serverless" from the perspective of the user (who is a developer in this case).

It's specifically not server-less. The developer is writing code that will be run on a server. They just don't control that server. That is literally no different than people who push regular Ruby/Python/PHP/NodeJS/Perl/etc apps to platforms platforms like Heroku, or like developers pushing CGI/PHP scripts to regular shared-hosting providers via FTP back in the day.

In all cases, the developer has very limited, if any control over the server, and just uploads their code to run.

> I guess it's like wireless... Something could be wireless from the perspective of the end user but there are still wires actually there.

No, it fucking isn't. "Wireless" describes a specific type of connectivity - either WiFi/Bluetooth style short-range local networking, or Cellular/WiMax style long-range "last mile" networking. For the specific connectivity that is described as "Wireless" THERE ARE NO FUCKING WIRES. It is very possible to operate a 100% wireless network - e.g. bluetooth device networking, or wifi LAN networking. You will only be able to connect to other devices on the same network, but internet access isn't what's being claimed, and it will be completely wireless.

In the single specific definition of the "serverless" architecture, there is very much a server (and more than likely several), and without that server, you have nothing.

> I honestly think that serverless is a lot less ambiguous and misleading than something like "cloud" which is completely abstract.

With terms like Cloud, the term has actual technical background. Network diagrams often include a "cloud" component, which literally signifies something you don't control, usually a WAN/internet connection. See for example, this diagram with reference to a local IPX network (the page it's from isn't in English but references 1996): http://soback.kornet.net/~silicon/network/Tunneling.files/im...

Yes, the term has been expanded upon but there is still a basis of the same concept in its use: something you just use, you don't manage/control.

"Serverless" is a technically incorrect and very misleading term. The term would be better applied to something like HTML/JS Single-Page Apps that use things like offline storage/etc to allow truly offline browser based apps.

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