Show HN: Functions as a Service for Kubernetes | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Functions as a Service for Kubernetes

github.com

19 pointsalexellisuk5 comments

I've just had a play with community FaaS app - an online code editor + executor from a DevRel guy at Cisco. https://github.com/JockDaRock/Time2Code

You can run Go/Node/Python in your browser via functions.

How does this differ from the existing FaaS frameworks on top of Kubernetes?

FaaS is the first Kubernetes FaaS framework to natively support Docker Swarm and Kubernetes. Rather than using a highly specific / burnt-in JavaScript and Python runtime (as the other frameworks do) - any process or container can be deployed as a serverless function. This is because the execution of your functions is separate from the orchestration layer.

A tiny Golang shim (watchdog) is embedded in your container and means you don't have to create and maintain individual runtimes. You can even make `cat` or `gofmt` into a serverless function with no extra code. Communication is by stdin/stdout pipes (similar to CGI) meaning you can also support native Windows processes too - such as .NET.

You have a UI built-in for testing/viewing functions and metrics are used to auto-scale your functions for demand.

If you're already using Docker to package applications, it will be easy to adopt this OSS FaaS - whether building for Windows or Linux. More info on the README https://github.com/alexellis/faas/

How does the overhead of creating a new process for every request compare to language specific runtimes.

I realise it will be more, since it adds flexibility, just curious how much.

Good question - it depends entirely on the disk storage, RAM generation & speed and CPU. Golang and Python are fastest. I am sure it could be further optimized for a given combination.

Tested on a Type 3 Packet Bare Metal host with latest Docker Swarm. The NodeJS example called NodeInfo comes back in around 0.1s / 100ms for a round-trip. A bash built-in (cat) is 0.015s / 15ms. Golang sample markdown function - 0.024s / 24ms.

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