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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

#71

Post by losteric »

CharlesW wrote: post #69
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://readw…

Functions-as-a-service seems clearer to me

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

#72

Post by IgorPartola »

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 haven’t seen option 2 things referred to as serverless. Their descriptions often involve the word blockchain from what I gather.

Seeverless is a catchy name, and a better one perhaps would have been function oriented or function service or some such. But it really does mean swrverless in that (a) there isn’t one server and (b) there is zero configuration and maintenance of the server for you to perform.

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

#73

Post by CharlesW »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #68
MrFurious wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> As far as I know, all the projects that promote themselves as "serverless" are stateless functions…

Any normal PHP app is just a collection of stateless functions, but that doesn't automatically make all PHP apps "serverless" apps. What makes something "serverless" is the FaaS[1] execution model.

[1] https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html

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

#74

Post by CharlesW »

losteric wrote: post #71
CharlesW wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://readw…

Functions-as-a-service seems clearer to me

Me too! It also works nicely when thinking about the IaaS ⟷ PaaS ⟷ FaaS continuum of abstraction.

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

#75

Post by cavisne »

tmikaeld wrote: post #51

I'm new to serverless, but I've wondered what happens if: - The function get stuck and run forever? - It causes a request to loop? And you have hundreds or thousands of these "functions" deployed? Couldn't that cause sky-high costs if it goes undetected or even unwanted DDOS against other's infrastructure?

Lambda recently added customizable concurrency limits per function which was partly to address the "function cycle" issue, ie at least your costs wont blow out too quickly.

The classic example of this is a function subscribed to S3 events which in turn creates an s3 object itself :P

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

#76

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

CharlesW wrote: post #73
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> As far as I know, all the projects that promote themselves as "serverless" are stateless functions… Any normal PHP app is just a collection of stateless functions, but that doesn't automatically make all PHP apps "serverless" apps. What makes something "serverless" is the FaaS[1] execution model. [1] https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html

Most PHP apps are run by DBs. They are not stateless.

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

#77

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

IgorPartola wrote: post #72
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 haven’t seen option 2 things referred to as serverless. Their descriptions often involve the word blockchain from what I gather. Seeverless is a catchy name, and a better one perhaps would have been function oriented or function service or some such. But it really does mean swrverless in that (a) there isn’t one server and (b) there is zero configuration and maintenance of the server for you to perform.

> I haven’t seen option 2 things referred to as serverless.

People use "blockchain" to describe it to other non-technical people, but they do need a way to describe their architecture. Among blockchain/crypto developers the word "blockchain" has become washed down too much that it really doesn't mean anything. So when they need to explain their architecture they do need a way to describe how their app doesn't have a server.

What I've seen is people say "my app is 'TRULY' serverless", or "My app does not require a centralized server". This was actually my point, because it looks like people who are actually building truly "serverless" apps find themselves in a situation where the word has been hijacked by server vendors, so they have to use qualifiers like "truly", or explain it out in more detail to actually express that they indeed don't have a server. Not saying all the FaaS guys don't have a point, just saying it's kind of a funny situation not so different from when "hoverboard" was viral a few years ago. Everyone knew it didn't "hover" but it was too late because the brand was already taken.

> But it really does mean swrverless in that (a) there isn’t one server

Normally when you say "X-less", it means "there is NO X", not "there are more than one X".

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

#78

Post by dastbe »

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #68
MrFurious wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

in the past year or so i've seen serverless extended to anything where the underlying compute is abstracted away. so ex. bigquery and dynamodb, two very stateful services, are also described as serverless.

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

#79

Post by tedmiston »

djhworld wrote: post #58

Is anyone actually using this (and other open source solutions that do similar things) for anything? The cloud providers offer "serverless" billing for AWS Lambda/GCP Functions/Azure Functions in the sense that you pay just for the compute time and don't manage the underlying infrastructure. Outside of vendor lock in, what advantage does running a service like this really offer? To make a system like this usable you'…

Run on top of k8s it, and similar projects like Riff, allow you to run Lambda-style FaaS outside of clouds / on bare metal. That's the main benefit I see currently, besides that many companies what to abstract their code to be as cloud agnostic as possible.

Also, if you're running lots of function iterations, it can be cheaper to run this way than Lambda etc.

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

#80

Post by tedmiston »

elvinyung wrote: post #40
Willson50 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about rails, but there's a good Flask -> Lambda project called Zappa https://github.com/Miserlou/Zappa

Close enough -- I'll look into it, thanks!

AWS Chalice is similar to Zappa as well.
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