4 ms·

IronFunctions: language agnostic open-source alternative to AWS Lambda

71 points by martinpinto 10y ago

kholmes79 10y ago
do you support java?
- out_of_protocol 10y ago
  Anything in docker container would work i suppose
- soroso 10y ago
  It is built on top of Docker, so if you dockerize a Java application, it just works. It does work also with Java lambda apps, you can import them straight from AWS Lambda API using the CLI app.
- treeder 10y ago
  Yes, Java is supported. Like the other comment, anything you can run in a Docker container, which is pretty much any language. It also supports the same format/structure as Lambda in Java.
- seiflotfy 10y ago
  you can import your AWS Java code using the command line https://github.com/iron-io/functions/blob/master/docs/lambda/import.md https://github.com/iron-io/functions/blob/master/docs/lambda...
out_of_protocol 10y ago
Are both sync and async modes supported?
- treeder 10y ago
  Yes, both are supported. See the main README for how to use both.
- soroso 10y ago
  Yes - when you create a function you may tell whether it is sync or async, and just push tasks into it.
rendered_fat 10y ago
neat. Is there any plans to tie this into the serverless (or JAWS whatever) framework?
- carimura 10y ago
  Ya if it's a popular request, definitely.
carimura 10y ago
also join the real-time conversation: http://get.iron.io/open-slack http://get.iron.io/open-slack
bglynn 10y ago
How's the difference between between IronWorker and IronFunctions?
- carimura 10y ago
  IronWorker is more classic job processing whereas IronFunctions is AWS Lambda-style sync service. We'll follow up with a longer blog post on the differences.
kaishiro 10y ago
Woah, this is a big deal. I played with IronWorkers a lot and even built some tooling around spinning up a worker and long polling an IronCache waiting for output (yes, it was a little gnarly). I'm really excited to play with this.
aisofteng 10y ago
OpenWhisk is also in this space.
sandGorgon 10y ago
Are you planning on adding scheduled functions? Kind of like a cron..
- treeder 10y ago
  Yes, we are! Follow this issue: https://github.com/iron-io/functions/issues/100 https://github.com/iron-io/functions/issues/100
wilsonfiifi 10y ago
This is absolutely fab! I've been trying to figure out an elegant way to 'pipe' query results to user defined filter functions[0] for my side-project[1]. Can't wait to give this a go and dig into it. Thanks for making this open source and writing it in Go(lang) :-D [0] https://bytengine.readthedocs.io/en/latest/funcs.html [1] https://github.com/johnwilson/bytengine
kennu 10y ago
It's not strictly speaking an alternative to AWS Lambda, because you have to run your own IronFunctions server somewhere. So you will again have to manage servers instead of being serverless. It's nice to have this platform available though.
- carimura 10y ago
  Right, it's Lambda anywhere ... that you want to run it. But we hope/expect to see the service hosted on all clouds soon.
fierro 10y ago
Assuming you want to expose a set of APIs, each corresponding to a single function, each API is a separate docker container? What are the performance ramifications of functions-in-docker?
- treeder 10y ago
  Unfortunately, Docker has a fair bit of overhead, more on that here: https://medium.com/travis-on-docker/the-overhead-of-docker-run-f2f06d47c9f3 https://medium.com/travis-on-docker/the-overhead-of-docker-r... . That said, the overhead is probably not a big deal in a lot of cases. And for the those cases, where it is a big deal, the next two major milestones on the roadmap aim to work around that issue, namely hot containers and streaming input. https://github.com/iron-io/functions#roadmap https://github.com/iron-io/functions#roadmap . Once that's in place, it should perform similar to any API.

71 points by martinpinto 10y ago

kholmes79 10y ago

do you support java?

out_of_protocol 10y ago
Anything in docker container would work i suppose
soroso 10y ago
It is built on top of Docker, so if you dockerize a Java application, it just works. It does work also with Java lambda apps, you can import them straight from AWS Lambda API using the CLI app.
treeder 10y ago
Yes, Java is supported. Like the other comment, anything you can run in a Docker container, which is pretty much any language. It also supports the same format/structure as Lambda in Java.
seiflotfy 10y ago
you can import your AWS Java code using the command line https://github.com/iron-io/functions/blob/master/docs/lambda/import.md https://github.com/iron-io/functions/blob/master/docs/lambda...

out_of_protocol 10y ago

Are both sync and async modes supported?

treeder 10y ago
Yes, both are supported. See the main README for how to use both.
soroso 10y ago
Yes - when you create a function you may tell whether it is sync or async, and just push tasks into it.

rendered_fat 10y ago

neat. Is there any plans to tie this into the serverless (or JAWS whatever) framework?

carimura 10y ago
Ya if it's a popular request, definitely.

carimura 10y ago

also join the real-time conversation: http://get.iron.io/open-slack http://get.iron.io/open-slack

bglynn 10y ago

How's the difference between between IronWorker and IronFunctions?

carimura 10y ago
IronWorker is more classic job processing whereas IronFunctions is AWS Lambda-style sync service. We'll follow up with a longer blog post on the differences.

kaishiro 10y ago

Woah, this is a big deal. I played with IronWorkers a lot and even built some tooling around spinning up a worker and long polling an IronCache waiting for output (yes, it was a little gnarly). I'm really excited to play with this.

aisofteng 10y ago

OpenWhisk is also in this space.

sandGorgon 10y ago

Are you planning on adding scheduled functions? Kind of like a cron..

treeder 10y ago
Yes, we are! Follow this issue: https://github.com/iron-io/functions/issues/100 https://github.com/iron-io/functions/issues/100

wilsonfiifi 10y ago

This is absolutely fab! I've been trying to figure out an elegant way to 'pipe' query results to user defined filter functions[0] for my side-project[1]. Can't wait to give this a go and dig into it. Thanks for making this open source and writing it in Go(lang) :-D [0] https://bytengine.readthedocs.io/en/latest/funcs.html [1] https://github.com/johnwilson/bytengine

kennu 10y ago

It's not strictly speaking an alternative to AWS Lambda, because you have to run your own IronFunctions server somewhere. So you will again have to manage servers instead of being serverless. It's nice to have this platform available though.

carimura 10y ago
Right, it's Lambda anywhere ... that you want to run it. But we hope/expect to see the service hosted on all clouds soon.

fierro 10y ago

Assuming you want to expose a set of APIs, each corresponding to a single function, each API is a separate docker container? What are the performance ramifications of functions-in-docker?

treeder 10y ago
Unfortunately, Docker has a fair bit of overhead, more on that here: https://medium.com/travis-on-docker/the-overhead-of-docker-run-f2f06d47c9f3 https://medium.com/travis-on-docker/the-overhead-of-docker-r... . That said, the overhead is probably not a big deal in a lot of cases. And for the those cases, where it is a big deal, the next two major milestones on the roadmap aim to work around that issue, namely hot containers and streaming input. https://github.com/iron-io/functions#roadmap https://github.com/iron-io/functions#roadmap . Once that's in place, it should perform similar to any API.