[openstack-dev] [FaaS] Introduce a FaaS project

Sam P sam47priya at gmail.com
Mon May 15 08:32:04 UTC 2017


Hi Larry,
 Thank you for the details.
 I am interested and like the idea of no vendor/platform lock-in.

 However,  I still have this stupid question in me.
 Why FaaS need to be in the OpenStack ecosystem? Can it survive
outside and still be able to integrate with OpenStack?
 This FaaS must able to well integrated with OpenStack ecosystem and
no argument there.

>>IMHO, none of them can be well integrated with OpenStack ecosystem.
Can you share more details on this?  If you have done any survey on
this,  please share.
Crating FaaS with pure OpenStack means, we need to create something
similar to OpenWhisk or IronFunctions with existing or new OpenStack
components.
I just want to make sure it is worth it to recreate the wheels.


Jsut for the info, I think this [0] is your previous ML thread...
[0] http://lists.openstack.org/pipermail/openstack-dev/2017-May/116472.html
--- Regards,
Sampath



On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 2:59 PM, Li Ma <skywalker.nick at gmail.com> wrote:
> That's interesting. Serverless is a general computing engine that can
> brings lots of possibility of how to make use of resource managed by
> OpenStack. I'd like to see a purely OpenStack-powered solution there.
>
> Do you have submitted a proposal to create this project under
> OpenStack umbrella?
>
> On Mon, May 15, 2017 at 9:36 AM, Lingxian Kong <anlin.kong at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Yes, I am recreating the wheels :-)
>>
>> I am sending this email not intend to say Qinling[1] project is a better
>> option than others as a project of function as a service, I just provide
>> another
>> possibility for developers/operators already in OpenStack world, and try my
>> luck to seek people who have the same interest in serverless area and
>> cooperate
>> together to make it more and more mature if possible, because I see
>> serverless
>> becomes more and more popular in current agile IT world but I don't see
>> there
>> is a good candidate in OpenStack ecosystem.
>>
>> I remember I asked the question that if we have a FaaS available project in
>> OpenStack, what I got are something like: Picasso[2], OpenWhisk[3], etc, but
>> IMHO, none of them can be well integrated with OpenStack ecosystem. I don't
>> mean they are not good, on the contrary, they are good, especially OpenWhisk
>> which is already deployed and available in IBM Bluemix production. Picasso
>> is
>> only a very thin proxy layer to IronFunctions which is an open source
>> project
>> comes from Iron.io company who also has a commercial FaaS product.
>>
>> However, there are several reasons make me create a new project:
>>
>> - Maybe not many OpenStack operators/developers want to touch a project
>>   written in another programming language besides Python (and maybe Go? not
>> sure
>>   the result of TC resolution). The deployment/dependency management/code
>>   maintenance will bring much more overhead.
>>
>> - I'd like to see a project which is using the similar
>>   components/infrastructure as most of the other OpenStack projects, e.g.
>>   keystone authentication, message queue(in order to receive notification
>> from
>>   Panko then trigger functions), database, oslo library, swift(for code
>>   package storage), etc. Of course, I could directly contribute and modify
>>   some existing project(e.g. Picasso) to satisfy these conditions, but I am
>>   afraid the time and effort it could take is exactly the same as if I
>> create
>>   a new one.
>>
>> - I'd like to see a project with no vendor/platform lock-in. Most of the
>> FaaS
>>   projects are based on one specific container orchestration platform or
>> want
>>   to promote usage of its own commercial product. For me, it's always a good
>>   thing to have more technical options when evaluating a new service.
>>
>> Qinling project is still at the very very early stage. I created it one
>> month ago
>> and work on it only in my spare time. But it works, you can see a basic
>> usage
>> introduction in README.rst and give it a try. A lot of things are still
>> missing, CLI, UT, devstack plugin, UI, etc.
>>
>> Of course, you can ignore me (still appreciate you read here) if you think
>> it's really not necessary and stupid to create such a project in OpenStack,
>> or you can join me to discuss what we could do to improve it gradually and
>> provide a better option for a real function as a service to people in
>> OpenStack world.
>>
>> [1]: https://github.com/LingxianKong/qinling
>> [2]: https://github.com/openstack/picasso
>> [3]: https://github.com/openwhisk/openwhisk
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Lingxian Kong (Larry)
>>
>> __________________________________________________________________________
>> OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
>> Unsubscribe: OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe
>> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Li Ma (Nick)
> Email: skywalker.nick at gmail.com
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> OpenStack Development Mailing List (not for usage questions)
> Unsubscribe: OpenStack-dev-request at lists.openstack.org?subject:unsubscribe
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-dev



More information about the OpenStack-dev mailing list