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Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

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Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#101

Post by mfer »

sytse wrote: post #85
mfer wrote: post #59

I have a few questions. > Knative provides a set of middleware components that are essential to build modern, source-centric, and container-based applications that can run anywhere Are these middleware components that someone else is supposed to package together into something useful like a platform? The other bits lead me to think it's a platform of sorts in itself. So, why the talk of middleware? > Knative offers a…

I just had a call with Josh, a GitLab product manager, that maybe helps with some of your questions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1jK4F4NoBw

Thanks for sharing.

Noticed you talked a bit about kaniko. It has some security issues that have been talked about but last I checked not addressed by the kaniko team. How are you dealing with those?

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#102

Post by markusthoemmes »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #89
gdsdfe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically have a git repo that contains your business logic implemented as 'functions' and some configuration : knative will build, containerize, deploy, and glue/route those functions for you to make it a full fledged app. it will also take care of load balancing/scaling etc. So all you need really is focus on you business logic code and write some config for knative ... well this is at least the vision

How would this compare to something like serverless.com?

The serverless.com framework is built around existing serverless/faas platforms and allows you to write vendor-agnostic functions and deploy them exchangeably. It does not provide the resources to run your code. it abstracts away different API of different vendors to make them seem as one.

Knative on the other hand provides building blocks to eventually build a serverless platform. It provides the resources necessary to run and scale your application.

In short: You could use the serverless.com framework to deploy applications/functions on knative. But you still need some layer actually running your workload, like knative.

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#103

Post by jacques_chester »

aurailious wrote: post #95
djhworld wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You still need a Kubernetes cluster running though, right?

This is what I am trying to figure out too. Is Knative standalone, or is it running inside your K8 cluster, or do you build a K8 cluster and run this in it exclusively?

Knative installs into a Kubernetes cluster. Knative as it stands is not multi-tenant, so if you need to isolate workloads, you will need distinct Kubernetes clusters.

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#104

Post by jacques_chester »

rhlsthrm wrote: post #92
evankanderson wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a way to deploy and manage a stateless web application ("function") without needing to get into a bunch of low-level details, and get closer to pay-for-what-you-use.

Sorry, I'm still pretty new to Kubernetes. I am exploring using Serverless Framework + AWS Lambda/GCP Functions to build out a full CRUD-like REST API backend. If I used Knative, would I achieve a similar functionality? Would each "function" (i.e. endpoint) be deployed in a separate container? If it's all in one single (autoscaling) container you still don't acheive full pay-for-what-you-use, right?

Each distinct container/app/function scales independently.

Billing models do in fact affect our design discussions and we're still kicking the questions around[0][1].

[0] https://github.com/knative/serving/issues/895

[1] https://github.com/knative/serving/issues/848

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#105

Post by peterwwillis »

gdsdfe wrote: post #75
peterwwillis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone also give us a 20 sentences explanation on how it works, or an example installation? "It does magic" still leaves me wondering if this is worth investigating.

You basically have a git repo that contains your business logic implemented as 'functions' and some configuration : knative will build, containerize, deploy, and glue/route those functions for you to make it a full fledged app. it will also take care of load balancing/scaling etc. So all you need really is focus on you business logic code and write some config for knative ... well this is at least the vision

This is just a summary of what it is. A car is a machine that moves you around the roads. But how does the car work ?

Are you using it? Because the docs seem to show that what you describe is not the case. The devs seem to have to write integrations for everything, so almost nothing is done for them. Saying Knative will "do it for you" is like saying your car will "drive itself". You only have to steer it and work the pedals ...

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#106

Post by isdal »

wikibob wrote: post #55
isdal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the engineering manager at Google responsible for both Knative and App Engine Flex. What we heard from a lot of customers is that they want a serverless / App Engine Flex-like experience but one that works multi-cloud or in hybrid/on-prem setups. The goal for Knative is to fill that need, especially for people that already use kubernetes. That being said, App Engine Flex is a solid GA service that provides a full…

I want to love AppEngine Flex, but it consistently takes 10+ minutes to deploy. Is this something that we can ever expect a fix for?

Network/Load-balancer programming is embarrassingly slow on Flex. We have long term projects in place that will improve it but I can't give any dates here.

Short term we have a few tactical features in the pipeline. In the next few weeks we are rolling our "parallel build and deploy" which moved the docker build to run parallel with LB programming. Depending on your build that saves a few minutes.

When doing development I usually just replace an existing version by deploying with:

gcloud app deploy --version

This keeps the same LB and VMs as before and does a gradual container swap. It is not safe for production but definitely helps when iterating.

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#107

Post by isdal »

otterley wrote: post #65
isdal wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the engineering manager at Google responsible for both Knative and App Engine Flex. What we heard from a lot of customers is that they want a serverless / App Engine Flex-like experience but one that works multi-cloud or in hybrid/on-prem setups. The goal for Knative is to fill that need, especially for people that already use kubernetes. That being said, App Engine Flex is a solid GA service that provides a full…

How would you anticipate seeing this work in, say, AWS?

Knative depends on Kubernetes and should run well on any reasonable Kubernetes setup. I haven't tested Knative on AWS since I'm not a customer there :-)

We were thrilled to see Microsoft contribute instructions for Azure (https://github.com/knative/docs/issues/208) but we have not heard much from Amazon yet.

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#108

Post by [deleted] »

isdal wrote: post #107
otterley wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you anticipate seeing this work in, say, AWS?

Knative depends on Kubernetes and should run well on any reasonable Kubernetes setup. I haven't tested Knative on AWS since I'm not a customer there :-) We were thrilled to see Microsoft contribute instructions for Azure ( https://github.com/knative/docs/issues/208 ) but we have not heard much from Amazon yet.

[deleted]

Re: Knative – Kubernetes-based platform to manage modern serverless workloads

#109

Post by gdsdfe »

peterwwillis wrote: post #105
gdsdfe wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You basically have a git repo that contains your business logic implemented as 'functions' and some configuration : knative will build, containerize, deploy, and glue/route those functions for you to make it a full fledged app. it will also take care of load balancing/scaling etc. So all you need really is focus on you business logic code and write some config for knative ... well this is at least the vision

This is just a summary of what it is. A car is a machine that moves you around the roads. But how does the car work ? Are you using it? Because the docs seem to show that what you describe is not the case. The devs seem to have to write integrations for everything, so almost nothing is done for them. Saying Knative will "do it for you" is like saying your car will "drive itself". You only have to steer it and work th…

I am giving you the higher level view on what I think it does ... read the docs! or even better the source code it is open. Explaining to you how the car works can be as far as explaining how physics work, because you need understand combustion, gravity etc. EDIT: and that will exceed 20 sentences by a few very heavy books.
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