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Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

openwhisk.apache.org

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Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#62

Post by diggan »

paulgb wrote: post #27
andybak wrote: post #19

So serverless is essentially a return to the PHP/CGI execution model... What's changed to turn a bad idea into a good idea again?

Was it ever a bad idea, or did it just go out of fashion? I'm not a PHP fan, but I miss the simplicity of low-end deployments on a LAMP stack by literally dragging files over FTP. It seems like something has been lost with the total embrace of more modern web frameworks.

It's just a difference in scale. I mean, you can still setup a FTP and drag and drop your files to deploy, if you want to. But companies with many developers deploying multiple changes per day, needs something that works better and faster. Not saying that serverless is for them, but that's why things get more complex sometimes. But you're still able to choose "older" things.

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#63

Post by doppel »

cnj wrote: post #44
masukomi wrote: post #38

Can someone explain to me WHERE the servers exist for this "serverless" platform? Is this code i run on lamda and lamda competitors? Is apache hosting it? Do i have to set up my own servers to run the code? All the intro docs and FAQs seem to assume that "serverless" is literally no servers, just magical cloud fairies or something. I get that it uses docker containers, but where can i / am i expected to run those?

This is open source, so "someone" has to run it. This someone could be e.g. IBM or RedHat, it could also be someone like Adobe that wants to offer a FaaS integrated into their main product. It could also be your own company, e.g. you could have an infrastructure team that provides it for all other teams.

I find mentions of “deployments”, but unlike a platform like Kubernetes I can’t seem to find any mention of how to set up the “serverless servers” anywhere. And until then it’s just a really neat local CLI

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#64

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

Nowadays when someone claims to be "serverless", there can be two interpretations:

1. It's a server actually. It's just that the server serves up functions, without state. So a more correct terminology would be "stateless servers"

2. Truly P2P (Like blockchain), therefore there truly are no "servers".

Used to think Amazon did a great job coming up with the jargon that's great for marketing, but lately as we see more and more option 2s which are TRULY "serverless", the option 1s increasingly sound like imposters.

After all in option 1, there ARE servers. To be able to claim you're "serverless", you really shouldn't have servers.

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#65

Post by mwea »

Does anyone have informations about the scalability of FaaS models ?

Despite the monitoring part that must be quite hard.. I wonder about the network saturation in case of services that get millions of requests per minutes and having, in this model, function interactions going through the network

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#66

Post by mr_toad »

masukomi wrote: post #38

Can someone explain to me WHERE the servers exist for this "serverless" platform? Is this code i run on lamda and lamda competitors? Is apache hosting it? Do i have to set up my own servers to run the code? All the intro docs and FAQs seem to assume that "serverless" is literally no servers, just magical cloud fairies or something. I get that it uses docker containers, but where can i / am i expected to run those?

I get the impression that Apache are running the servers themselves, but it’s not clear from skimming the documentation.

Edit: I could be wrong, looks like there is an OpenWhisk offering from IBM: https://console.bluemix.net/openwhisk/

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#67

Post by MrFurious »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #64

Nowadays when someone claims to be "serverless", there can be two interpretations: 1. It's a server actually. It's just that the server serves up functions, without state. So a more correct terminology would be "stateless servers" 2. Truly P2P (Like blockchain), therefore there truly are no "servers". Used to think Amazon did a great job coming up with the jargon that's great for marketing, but lately as we see more…

I think that the best name is "server for dummies".

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#68

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

MrFurious wrote: post #67
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #64

Nowadays when someone claims to be "serverless", there can be two interpretations: 1. It's a server actually. It's just that the server serves up functions, without state. So a more correct terminology would be "stateless servers" 2. Truly P2P (Like blockchain), therefore there truly are no "servers". Used to think Amazon did a great job coming up with the jargon that's great for marketing, but lately as we see more…

I think that the best name is "server for dummies".

As far as I know, all the projects that promote themselves as "serverless" are stateless functions and not designed to store states, which means if you want a database you will need to store it elsewhere and utilize it from the "serverless" container. So no DB for you out of the box if you want to use serverless architecture.

So I don't think it's for "dummies". Dummies want an all-in-one server.

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#69

Post by CharlesW »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #64

Nowadays when someone claims to be "serverless", there can be two interpretations: 1. It's a server actually. It's just that the server serves up functions, without state. So a more correct terminology would be "stateless servers" 2. Truly P2P (Like blockchain), therefore there truly are no "servers". Used to think Amazon did a great job coming up with the jargon that's great for marketing, but lately as we see more…

Like "cloud computing", the name "serverless" doesn't make much sense when used literally. It doesn't mean that there are no servers involved, just that there are none to be directly managed by the developer.

P2P also doesn't mean "no servers", but that every node is as much server as client.

Amazon popularized but didn't invent the term "serverless", which appears to have been first used in 2012.[1]

[1] http://readwrite.com/2012/10/15/why-the-future-of-software-a...

Re: Apache OpenWhisk – A serverless, open-source cloud platform

#70

Post by CharlesW »

jacques_chester wrote: post #11
amelius wrote: post #5

Since it's serverless, I assume it runs on the client. How does it scale then? And is the client really the right place to run these functions, in view of performance, and perhaps battery use?

"Serverless" is a marketing term invented by Amazon for what might in retrospect have been better described as mini-PaaS. It doesn't literally mean "without servers". It means that the developer doesn't care about them. AWS have energetically pushed the line that in The One True and Holy Definition of Serverless operators don't care either. Which, gee whiz, what a coincidence, distinguishes Lambda from opensource pro…

> "Serverless" is a marketing term invented by Amazon for what might in retrospect have been better described as mini-PaaS.

Popularized by, but not invented by: http://readwrite.com/2012/10/15/why-the-future-of-software-a...

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