“Serverless” can be defined as a couple simple things: 1 - It’s a programming model for structuring applications as functions and events (basically a manifestation of microservices). 2 - It’s a cloud business model, where use is billed by the function call instead of by the provisioned server, so apps only pay when they run and for how long they run, eliminating over-provisioning and typically reducing costs. In this talk, we’ll cover the what, why and how of serverless, and learn more about it through running code. Throughout the session, we’ll focus on how the serverless model is being leveraged in the real world - not just toy functions and demos. Legacy enterprise apps - which are typically monolithic, written by large teams of Java and .Net devs, and resembling a bit of a mud ball - are being shaved down to take advantage of serverless, and we’ll be sharing some early results from those efforts. We'll discuss examples of how Fortune 50 companies are building their serverless projects on the Kubernetes and Mesos clouds they have already deployed. Le terme “Serverless” a plusieurs significations: 1 - un modèle de programmation pour structurer les applications en tant que fonctions et événements (essentiellement une manifestation de microservices); et 2 - Il s'agit d'un modèle d'entreprise Cloud, où l'utilisation est facturée par l'appel de fonction plutôt que par le serveur provisionné, de sorte que les applications ne paient que lorsqu'elles fonctionnent et pour combien de temps elles courent, éliminant le sur-provisionnement et réduisant les coûts associés. Dans ce discours, nous allons couvrir le quoi, le pourquoi et comment de Serverless, et en savoir plus à ce sujet en exécutant le code. Nous nous concentrerons sur la façon dont le modèle Serverless est utilisé dans le monde réel - pas seulement les fonctions et démos. Les applications d'entreprise héritées - qui sont généralement monolithiques, écrites par de grandes équipes de développeurs Java et .Net et ressemblant à un peu une grande boule de boue - sont rasées pour profiter de Serverless, et nous partagerons des résultats préliminaires de ces efforts.

1. The What, Why and How of Serverless in the Real World
Serverless 101

2. Aaron Williams
Co-Founder, CEO
Funcatron
@_arw_
/williamsaaron
/in/aaronwilliams/
aaron@funcatron.com

3. Follow Along or
Follow-up:
/williamsaaron/serverless101-YUL

4. Agenda
1. What the heck is “Serverless?”
2. Why is it gaining momentum? (Why should I care?)
3. How is it being used? (What are the categories of good use cases?)
4. How can I use it?
5. DEMO
6. What’s next?
7. Q&A

5. 1. What the heck is
“Serverless?”

6. M A G I C ?!

7. Serverless History
It comes down to what you have to care about.
Hardware
OS
Platform
Extensions
Your App
ERA #1
Pre-Cloud
(the DARK AGES)

8. Serverless History
Hardware
OS
Platform
Extensions
Your App
ERA #2
Cloud
+
Containers OS
Hardware
It comes down to what you have to care about.
IaaS

9. A Quick Sidebar on “DevOps”
We’ve traded more power for more responsibility (by which I mean scripting … ugh)
Developers and managers are starting to feel the pain of this at scale
Devs don’t want to learn ops; they just want better interfaces to be better devs
OR ?

10. Serverless History
Hardware
OS
Platform
Extensions
Your App
ERA #3
Serverless
OS
Hardware
Platform
Extensions
f() f() f() f()f()f()
It comes down to what you have to care about.
PaaS
IaaS
“FaaS”

11. ANTZ!
Ants are:
● Excellent communicators and hard workers
● Abundant (the total weight of ants on earth equals the total
weight of humans)
● Almost all female

12. Anatomy of a Function
Think events! The message queue is becoming the source of truth
Functions are deployed independently, as each dev cycle requires
They’re also run and scaled independently, as the event queue demands
Trigger Event
- Event Queue
- DB Update
- Doc Update
- External Call
f()f()
Result(s)
- Event Queue
- DB Update
- Doc Update
- External Call

13. Serverless is a Philosophy
1. Microservices architecture
2. Event-driven (“stateless”)
3. Agile teams development
Functions-as-a-Service (FaaS) is an offering, and every cloud has one
“Serviceful” is probably a better term … but the “Serverless” ship has sailed
What is Serverless?

14. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqlcVgk8SkUmve4Kw4xSlgw

15. 2. Why is it gaining
momentum?

16. “Every business will
become a software
business, build applications,
use advanced analytics and
provide SaaS services.”
- Smart CEO Guy
has

18. Software
Automation
Microservice
Architecture
Hardware
Abstraction
Business Trends
“Cloud Native”

19. 37%
of IT decision makers have already
adopted serverless technologies
from Sept 2016
451 Research: Voice of the Enterprise

21. The Cost of Serverless
What it means:
● No unused capacity (datacenters build for 95% of
peak usage; are lucky to reach 25% mean utilization)
● No scale-fails (the 5%!)
● Easier to optimize costs when they are tied directly
to the activity of your app
● BUT: it is not automatically cheaper
So … serverless
doesn’t mean free?
Are you sure?
The principle: you’re only billed for function execution (consumed vs. provisioned)

22. https://headmelted.com/serverless-showdown-4a771ca561d2
SHOWDOWN!

23. http://serverlesscalc.com/

24. 3. How is it being
used?

25. Top Use Cases
Functions that are event-driven
file updates and notifications; bots; IoT
Functions that need to scale
payroll-related tasks; ETL / data pipeline tasks
Functions that you want abstracted from another service
image manipulations; credit checks
Functions that are not sensitive to latency (so, not whole web sites, generally)
backups; generating reports; other housekeeping

26. https://read.acloud.guru/serverless-event-sourcing-at-nordstrom-ea69bd8fb7cc

27. 4. How can I use it?

28. The Dreaded
Mudball

29. The Cloud Native Transformation

30. Low-risk
Digital
(Cloud Native)
Transformation

31. http://blog.spotinst.com/2017/06/07/state-serverless-ecosystem/

32. 5. DEMO TIME!

34. Setup
Create a BlueMix account : https://console.ng.bluemix.net/registration/
Download the OpenWhisk CLI: https://console.ng.bluemix.net/openwhisk/
** Make sure you set your namespace and auth key.
Clone the sample code: https://github.com/williamsaaron/serverless101-YUL
First, let’s write some Hello World code just to familiarize ourselves with the CLI ...

35. A Weather Bot for Slack
Take aways:
● Getting started requires no config (zero ops)
● Almost all of the code we write will be specific for our app
● All clouds offer a free tier

36. Sequence:
slack_from_location
Weather Bot Flow
Two scripts, one sequence, and some simple Slack config
Let’s do it!
Action:
latlong_from_location
Action:
forecast_from_latlong
Command:
forecast montreal
Action:
post_to_slack

37. Quick Recap
I know ... bots are lame, but they’re a good 101-level intro. Review
the use cases for better, more complete examples.
We did ~0% ops, and ~100% of our code was specific to our app.
OpenWhisk is not unique, Lambda from AWS, Cloud Functions from Google and
Azure Functions from Microsoft all have the same basic interface (CLI and GUI)
(If you have suggestions to improve the demo, things you’d like to see more of,
please reach out!)

38. 6. What’s next?

39. Some Predictions
Latency will become a non-issue
Cost savings will be the primary driver through 2018,
but developer agility will be the long term value
Team work will be a limiting factor
Habs win the cup in 2018?!

40. 7. Any questions?

41. THANK YOU!
Aaron Williams
@_arw_
/williamsaaron
/in/aaronwilliams/
aaron@funcatron.com