IBM Bluemix OpenWhisk: Serverless Conference 2017, Austin, USA: The journey continues: What's new in OpenWhisk land?

© 2017 IBM Corporation l Interconnect 2017
IBM Bluemix
OpenWhisk
The journey continues:  
What's new in OpenWhisk land
and what have our customers
built?
@AndreasNauerz
@Michael_beh

IBM Bluemix OpenWhisk
Available as 
open source via Apache
openwhisk.org
FaaS platform to execute code
in response to events
OpenWhisk

FaaS platform to execute code
in response to events
OpenWhisk
Also available as managed service on 
IBM Bluemix
bluemix.net/openwhisk

OpenWhisk allows
you to build up an
entirely serverless
application
architecture
Openwhisk
IOT
Mobile
Cognitive
APIs
Data
What is OpenWhisk good for?

API Gateway
support
Allows to map API endpoints  
to OpenWhisk actions
GA Now
Serverless microservice APIs/backend
Available for free, without limits
Deﬁne Actions:
getCostumer
createCostumer 
deleteCostumer
Deﬁne API Endpoints (URLs) and map to Actions
Get: mydomain.com/…/customers
Post: mydomain.com/…/customers 
Delete: mydomain.com/…/customers
12

getCostumer
createCostumer 
deleteCostumer
Easy to add and edit:
Security (API key, API secret, OAuth validation, CORS)
Rate-Limiting
Map actions to API endpoints (OpenAPI Doc creation)
Easy socialization (sharing, API key creation)
Analytics (API calls, errors, response time)
Test your API (API Explorer)
Upload Swagger/OpenAPI Doc
3
2 1

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskWhat is OpenWhisk good for?
1
3
4
2

Gives you full control over HTTP
request/response from within an
action
New
Web actions
Another way to invoke an action is via
our newest web action capabilities.
Those OpenWhisk actions quickly
enable you to build web based
applications. Allowing backend logic
which your web application can
access anonymously without requiring
an OpenWhisk authentication key. It is
up to the action developer to
hello
Client
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant
Enable Action to be a WebAction

Sending a redirect
Setting a cookie
Sending an image
Examples for
response handling

Example for
request handling

Allows to use Kong as an alternative
open & vendor-agnostic API
Gateway
New
Kong plug-in 
for OpenWhisk

1
2

3

Integration with 
New
Allows OpenWhisk to work with today’s
stream-based applications; stream
data to/from OpenWhisk and leverage
PubNub BLOCKS for lightweight
compute in the network.
Bringing OpenWhisk to Realtime Applications

Vehicle Dispatch
PubNub Blocks → OpenWhisk
PubNub Blocks filters geo data and
routes to OpenWhisk for
computation. OpenWhisk runs
business logic and M.L. and
broadcasts back to PubNub
listeners on end-devices.
NewSample use-cases…
Disaster Alerts
OpenWhisk → PubNub
OpenWhisk detects weather
anomalies and and broadcasts to
PubNub listeners on end-devices
for real-time disaster alerts.
Social Chat App
PubNub → Watson + OpenWhisk
PubNub filters chat messages
through a PubNub Watson
Translator Block, and offloads
audience analysis to OpenWhisk for
async post-processing.

Sample…
Clone and conﬁgure PubNub’s
OpenWhisk Block at
pubnub.com/openwhisk
{
“Openwhisk”: {
“triggerName”: “hello_world”
“payload”: {“message”: “Hello From PubNub BLOCKS!”,
“publishTime”: 1492747834095 }
}
}
function main(params) {
var dateNow = + new Date();
return { message: params.message, time_to_publish: dateNow -
params.publishTime }
}
{
“message”: “Hello From PubNub Blocks!”,
“time_to_publish”: 15
}
1
2
3
4
JSON input payload to your Block
OpenWhisk simple computation
New
Return output

Swift Action
Mobile
backend
IBM API Gateway
Openwhisk
APIHi!
Outsource compute-intensive tasks to a powerful &
scalable serverless platform and implement your actions
even without changing the programming language.
Swift Action

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskWhat is Serverless good for?
Mobile
backend
The Weather Gods
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/weather-
gods/id1041512978?mt=8
IBM API Gateway
Openwhisk
APIHi!

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskThe Weather Gods High Level Architecture
Weather
CheckerTWC
Weather
Model
Group
Scanner
1
Cron trigger  
every 3 minutes
Cloudant
Set flag to
check weather
for each user
location in the
group
For each user
location updated
2
Weather
Collector
Trigger
Snow
Scanner
Rain
Scanner
Wind
Scanner
Storm
Scanner
Frost
Scanner
ETC
Scanner
3
Weather
Update Trigger
Notification
Notification
Model
Send
Notification
4
Notification
Trigger
Bluemix
Notification
Weather
Gods
OpenWhisk Actions
External
Data
Triggers

Data
processing
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant

Data
processing
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant
Ideally suited for working with multimedia
data like audio, image and video data:
Audio normalization
Image rotation, sharpening, noise reduction
or
Thumbnail generation
Image OCR’ing

Data
processing
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant
http://ecc.ibm.com/case-
study/us-en/ECCF-
CDC12387USEN
What do our customers do with OpenWhisk?
10x faster 
90% less cost

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskSiteSpirit High Level Architecture
ms2-image-
moveupload-trigger
ms2-imagecrop 
-trigger
Upload Bucket
Per Customer
Costumer DB
+
mediaspirit-transform
cloudant/create
ms2-
changelistener
ms2-
cloudant-
trigger
+
+
ms2-moveuploaded-
upload
ms2-get-clientconfig
ms2-moveuploaded-
done
+
+
+
ms2-fetch-cropres
ms2-get-clientconfig
ms2-imagecropper
ms2-crop-done
mediaspirit-newfile-uploaded
Crop Resolutions Buckets
?
Sequence
Trigger
Action
Manager DB
Object
Storage
1
2
3
4

Data
processing
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant
What do our customers do with OpenWhisk?
Less cost  
<$2 for all paper checks
processed within 1 year

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskSantander High Level Architecture
IBM Bluemix
Openwhisk
Object
Storage
Archived Audited Parsed Processed
Resized
Images
Represents
System of
Records
Save Images
Find  
Checks
ChangesChanges
Parse
Check
OCR 
Engine
Record
Deposit
Email
Notiﬁcation
Trigger ActionIBM Cloudant
1 2 3 4

Cognitive
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant

Cognitive
Skylink
https://github.com/IBM-Bluemix/skylink
Openwhisk
IBM Cloudant

Real-time Datastream Openwhisk
IBM Message Hub IBM Cloudant
Event processing/
Message Hub
Bluemix-managed
Apache Kafka service
for real-time build
outs of data pipelines
and streaming apps
supports binary data
New

Real-time Datastream Openwhisk
IBM Message Hub IBM Cloudant
Event processing via
IBM App Connect
IBM App Connect

Watson IoT
Realtime
Insights
Trigger events based on IoT
sensor data
IOT
Device
1Weather
Update
Trigger
Watson IOT
Platform
Realtime Insights rules2 3
4 Trigger an Action
OpenWhisk

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskWhat is Serverless good for?
Abilisense
https://www.abilisense.com/

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskAbilisense High Level Architecture
Abilisense
Openwhisk
Compose for MangoDB
IBM Weather Channel
IOT
IBM Watson IOT
Platform
Object Storage
Sound
Processing
Machine
Learning
Notiﬁcations
sFTP/FA
SP
M
Q
TT
HTTP
REST
Abilisense
MQTT
Smart Cities
REST
1
2a
2b
3 4

Assumptions
Home Devices 1,000 Un.
Avg. Sound File Size 1 MB
Avg. Number of Sound Readings 10 Monthly
IoT Reading Frequency 1 Hourly
IoT Recording Data Size 2 KB
Weather Data Reading Frequency 1 Hourly
Weather Data Reading Size 2 KB
Weather Data Total Capability 1.41 MB
Abilisense
Assumptions
Runtime Action per Millisecond 5
Memory MB 512
Number of Executions 5,000,000.00
Monthly Cost 14,45 US$

IoT
Node-Red

Scheduled
tasks
Periodic Alarm
Openwhisk

Chatbots
IBM API Gateway
(Optional)
API

IBM Bluemix OpenWhiskWhat do our customers do with OpenWhisk?
Customers and Partners
ClientsPartners

Commercial offering home:
bluemix.net/openwhisk
Open-source offering home:
openwhisk.org
Slack:
slack.openwhisk.org
Additional resources
Learn
more

Github github.com/openwhisk
Twitter twitter.com/openwhisk
Medium medium.com/openwhisk
Slideshare slideshare.net/OpenWhisk
Youtube youtube.com/channel/
UCbzgShnQk8F43NKsvEYA1SA
Learn
more
Additional resources

IBM Bluemix OpenWhisk: Serverless Conference 2017, Austin, USA: The journey continues: What's new in OpenWhisk land?

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