Golang-powered open source IoT project Flogo to build ultra-lightweight integration microservices. The Internet of Things (IoT) brings up 50 billion devices until 2020, which have to be connected somehow. Challenges include low bandwidth, high latency, non-reliable connectivity and the need for low network costs. Therefore, a gateway is needed remotely on site of the devices to filter, aggregate and send just relevant data into the cloud or data center. This session introduces project Flogo: A 100% open source framework, which allows developing ultra lightweight IoT integration applications with a zero-coding web user interface or design chat bot. Coders can also rely just on code, of course. It is written in Google’s Go programming language and 20-50x more lightweight than similar Java or JavaScript frameworks. Therefore building very lightweight microservices independent of IoT is another good use case for this framework, e.g. for serverless architectures using open source frameworks such as OpenWhisk. The session focuses on live demos and shows how to build microservices and integrate IoT devices using standards such as MQTT, WebSockets, CoaP or REST. The last part of the session compares Project Flogo to other open source IoT projects like Node-RED and SaaS offerings such as AWS IoT. Please use the Flogo community to discuss or ask questions: https://community.tibco.com/products/project-flogo Video recording of these slides: https://youtu.be/-ThK6BZdoxw

1. Kai Wähner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn
@KaiWaehner
www.kai-waehner.de
Gophercon 2017 (Pune, India)
Golang-powered Open Source Project Flogo for IoT Integration

2. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
• an ultra-lightweight integration framework powered by Golang
• open source under the very permissive BSD license and easily extendable
• used to develop IoT edge applications and other lightweight microservices
• complementary to other integration solutions, middleware and IoT cloud platforms
Key Takeaways
Flogo is …

3. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

4. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

5. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Internet of Things (IoT)
… refers to the ever-growing network of physical
objects that feature an IP address for internet
connectivity, and the communication that occurs
between these objects and other Internet-enabled
devices and systems.

6. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Integration is Key for Success of IoT Projects
Without Integration
there is no
Internet of Things!
Gartner
Market Guide for IoT Integration
“Through 2018, half the cost of
implementing IoT solutions will be
spent on integration.“
Strategic Planning Assumption,
Benoit J. Lheureux, Massimo Pezzini, Alfonso Velosa
!

7. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

8. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Available since October 2016…
http://www.flogo.io

9. Flogo Concepts to the End User
Trigger
Flow
Activity
Error Handler
Flogo App
One or more Flows
Flows
Activities + Transitions +
Optional error handler
Triggers
Starts those flows

10. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
• Wire together hardware devices, APIs and online services
• Control Devices via State Management (Re-Try, re-route, wait, resume, recover, …)
• Not just a dataflow pipeline
• Highly optimized for unreliable IoT environments
• Ultra-light footprint (powered by Go) for edge devices (disk and memory)
• Zero dependency model
• Web-native remote debugger
Flogo is a Process Engine

11. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

12. Use Cases for Flogo
IoT Edge Applications
• Consumer IoT
• Industrial IoT
Initial Use Case

13. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Data Processing at the Edge in an IoT World
http://a16z.com/2017/12/16/the-end-of-cloud-computing/

14. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Fog Computing (sometimes also called Edge Computing)
http://www.slideshare.net/Angelo.Corsaro/20141210-fog
… keep data closer
‘to the edge’
!
Benefits:
• Local control = more reliable
• Less traffic = LowerTCO
• Edge integration & event processing
& analytics / machine learning

15. Build Cloud-Native, Lightweight Microservices
• Public Cloud
• Containers on PaaS
• Serverless Architectures
Use Cases for Flogo
IoT Edge Applications
• Consumer IoT
• Industrial IoT
Initial Use Case Other Options

16. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

17. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Why Go?
Modern programming language
Getting a lot of traction due to usage in frameworks like Docker or Kubernetes
Concurrency
Built into the language (Goroutines, channels, no explicit thread programming)
Memory management
Modern Garbage collector
Statically typed
Type-safe development with no “surprises” during runtime
“Partly” object-oriented
Simple and flexible type system, composition instead of inheritance
Zero-dependency programming model
All-included binary file, no dependent “external” libraries
Speed
Ultra fast compilation and startup time, very lightweight footprint

18. Comparison – Resource Requirements of IoT Integration Frameworks
Eclipse Kura Node-RED Flogo
VM JVM JavaScriptV8 Golang
Base Disk Space 59 MB 56 MB ~ 0 MB
Base Runtime Memory ~ 170 MB (with Open JDK)
~ 20 MB (with Oracle Embedded Java)
> 50 MB ~ 5 MB
Startup time Slow (~8 sec) Slow (~5 sec) Fast (~1 sec)
Application Build Slow Not Applicable Fast (~2 secs)

19. Flogo Repositories on Github
flogo-lib
Core libraries.
flogo-services
Backing services required by Flogo for flow
and state management.
flogo-contrib
Flogo extensions available out of the box, like
triggers or activities.
flogo-cli
A command line tool to build Flogo apps.
https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/flogo
(very permissive open source BSD license)
Flogo Web Designer available for free as Docker Image

20. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
How to build a custom Flogo adapter
http://www.tibco.com/blog/2017/01/06/how-to-build-a-custom-flogo-adapter/

21. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

22. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Live Demo
Flogo in Action

23. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Live Demo
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

24. Amazon IoT Reference Architecture
Potential use cases
• Event-driven Flows
• Device Lifecycle Mgmt
• Orchestration
Core Integration
Agile Microservices
API Management

25. Google IoT Reference Architecture
Edge apps
Lightweight
edge apps

26. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
Serverless Architecture with IBM’s OpenWhisk (Open Source)
https://apiguy.tokyo/2017/03/01/openwhisk-a-world-first-in-open-serverless-architecture/
Edge
App
Edge
Gateway
Ultra-
Lightweight
Serverless
App

27. © Copyright 2000-2017 TIBCO Software Inc.
• an ultra-lightweight integration framework powered by Golang
• open source under the very permissive BSD license and easily extendable
• used to develop IoT edge applications and other lightweight microservices
• complementary to other integration solutions, middleware and IoT cloud platforms
Key Takeaways
Flogo is …

28. Outlook: Flogo Nanoservices on Microcontrollers
Flogo nanoservices that target
microcontrollers like ARM M0
Offload I/O centric compute
farther off to the edge.

29. Questions? Please contact me!
Kai Waehner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
@KaiWaehner
www.kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn