4 ms·

Can someone also give us a 20 sentences explanation on how it works, or an example installation? "It does magic" still leaves me wondering if this is worth inve

Can someone also give us a 20 sentences explanation on how it works, or an example installation? "It does magic" still leaves me wondering if this is worth investigating.

pas 8y ago
it's a PaaS .. heroku for k8s https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving/samples/source-to-url-go#deploying-the-sample https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving/samples/...
- bacongobbler 8y ago
  It'll be interesting to see the differences from other systems in this space (OpenShift, Deis Workflow). From the samples it appears to be more of a "pull code from github and push to Dockerhub" model than a "push code to the platform and push to an internal registry" that other PaaSes target. https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/3.3/install_config/registry/index.html https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/3.3/install_co... https://deis.com/docs/workflow/understanding-workflow/architecture/ https://deis.com/docs/workflow/understanding-workflow/archit... disclaimer: I was one of the core maintainers of Deis Workflow.
  - pas 8y ago
    Oh, I miss Deis, but congrats on the MS acquisition. I think looking at build is not interesting, because it seems that knative currently focuses on the serving and events part (some thoughts on this you might find interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17607401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17607401 ) The repository is just an example. Using an internal repo seems just as easy.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  Thank you for the link to the samples, they are much more informative. But it still doesn't quite explain it. The samples show that you can make an app, make a container, and make a service config file, and deploy your app to K8s. Yes, we've been able to do that for some time now. This thing is supposed to provide a bunch of advanced features for devs to not have to think about. However, the build repo says this: "While Knative builds are optimized for building, testing, and deploying source code, you are still responsible for developing the corresponding components that: + Retrieve source code from repositories. + Run multiple sequential jobs against a shared filesystem (for example, Install dependencies, Run unit and integration tests). + Build container images. + Push container images to an image registry, or deploy them to a cluster." "While today, a Knative build does not provide a complete standalone CI/CD solution, it does however, provide a lower-level building block that was purposefully designed to enable integration and utilization in larger systems." So as a developer you still have to have all the things you had before, but with extra layers of abstraction now, apparently just to support hybrid cloud installations. The marketing lingo appeals to developers as if it makes all this simple, when in fact it may be more complicated.
  - pas 8y ago
    I don't get it either. It seems like a big clapping for hot air. Yeah, it's great that there's a proper build, serve and events responsibility group, and now what? What's the "killer app" here, "the use case"? This seems nice though: https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving#more-samples-and-demos https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving#more-sam... It seems to have OpenTracing (Zipkin) integration: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/debugging-performance-issues.md#request-traces https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/debuggin... (you need to install elasticsearch and stuff for it of course: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/installing-logging-metrics-traces.md#elasticsearch-kibana-prometheus--grafana-setup https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/installi... ) And assigning a custom domain: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-a-custom-domain.md#apply-from-a-file https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-a-... ... okay, I was hoping that I can specify a whole URL where to mount the "app" (something like https://my.fancy.pants.tld/api/app2/ https://my.fancy.pants.tld/api/app2/ It seems to me that the weakest part of this is build currently. Mostly because that's what's pretty linear and one-off, and well explored by other projects (GitLab CI/CD can easily run on and deploy to k8s), and knative is mostly about serving and eventing, meaning all the interaction between the lifecycles of stuff on k8s.
- hrktb 8y ago
  Interesting. I had to learn Kubernetes very recently and this seems to simplify a lot of the boilerplate needed to have an app running. One the most grating part for me was having the ingress run with a proper SSL certificate with the right handshakes though (had to install a nginx controller just for that). That’s the kind of things that everyone will go through, and is solved in one click on heroku. Yet it seems to be left out of all the samples, if it’s out of the scope that diminishes a lot the appeal.
  - pas 8y ago
    I think there's a Kong ingress controller, that gets you a very powerful nginx setup. https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller Knative uses parts of Istio for servign and TLS/SSL setup: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-an-ssl-cert.md https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-an... It's a bit funny that knative serving is so complicated I have still no idea what they use under the many layers of abstraction (probably something hacked together in go), and I don't understand why don't they use a generic configurable ingress component.
gdsdfe 8y ago
You basically have a git repo that contains your business logic implemented as 'functions' and some configuration : knative will build, containerize, deploy, and glue/route those functions for you to make it a full fledged app. it will also take care of load balancing/scaling etc. So all you need really is focus on you business logic code and write some config for knative ... well this is at least the vision
- djhworld 8y ago
  Why isn't a polished version of this the blurb?
  - gdsdfe 8y ago
    They need to hire me :)
    - dewitt 8y ago
      Email me. : ) We're hiring. I'm dewitt@ all the obvious places.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  How would this compare to something like serverless.com?
  - gdsdfe 8y ago
    not sure they seem quite similar (I am not familiar with neither to be honest) but the main difference in my opinion is this is built on open source and backed by the big boys : google, IBM, SAP ..etc
  - markusthoemmes 8y ago
    The serverless.com framework is built around existing serverless/faas platforms and allows you to write vendor-agnostic functions and deploy them exchangeably. It does not provide the resources to run your code. it abstracts away different API of different vendors to make them seem as one. Knative on the other hand provides building blocks to eventually build a serverless platform. It provides the resources necessary to run and scale your application. In short: You could use the serverless.com framework to deploy applications/functions on knative. But you still need some layer actually running your workload, like knative.

Can someone also give us a 20 sentences explanation on how it works, or an example installation? "It does magic" still leaves me wondering if this is worth investigating.

pas 8y ago

it's a PaaS .. heroku for k8s https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving/samples/source-to-url-go#deploying-the-sample https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving/samples/...

bacongobbler 8y ago
It'll be interesting to see the differences from other systems in this space (OpenShift, Deis Workflow). From the samples it appears to be more of a "pull code from github and push to Dockerhub" model than a "push code to the platform and push to an internal registry" that other PaaSes target. https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/3.3/install_config/registry/index.html https://docs.openshift.com/container-platform/3.3/install_co... https://deis.com/docs/workflow/understanding-workflow/architecture/ https://deis.com/docs/workflow/understanding-workflow/archit... disclaimer: I was one of the core maintainers of Deis Workflow.
- pas 8y ago
  Oh, I miss Deis, but congrats on the MS acquisition. I think looking at build is not interesting, because it seems that knative currently focuses on the serving and events part (some thoughts on this you might find interesting: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17607401 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17607401 ) The repository is just an example. Using an internal repo seems just as easy.
peterwwillis 8y ago
Thank you for the link to the samples, they are much more informative. But it still doesn't quite explain it. The samples show that you can make an app, make a container, and make a service config file, and deploy your app to K8s. Yes, we've been able to do that for some time now. This thing is supposed to provide a bunch of advanced features for devs to not have to think about. However, the build repo says this: "While Knative builds are optimized for building, testing, and deploying source code, you are still responsible for developing the corresponding components that: + Retrieve source code from repositories. + Run multiple sequential jobs against a shared filesystem (for example, Install dependencies, Run unit and integration tests). + Build container images. + Push container images to an image registry, or deploy them to a cluster." "While today, a Knative build does not provide a complete standalone CI/CD solution, it does however, provide a lower-level building block that was purposefully designed to enable integration and utilization in larger systems." So as a developer you still have to have all the things you had before, but with extra layers of abstraction now, apparently just to support hybrid cloud installations. The marketing lingo appeals to developers as if it makes all this simple, when in fact it may be more complicated.
- pas 8y ago
  I don't get it either. It seems like a big clapping for hot air. Yeah, it's great that there's a proper build, serve and events responsibility group, and now what? What's the "killer app" here, "the use case"? This seems nice though: https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving#more-samples-and-demos https://github.com/knative/docs/tree/master/serving#more-sam... It seems to have OpenTracing (Zipkin) integration: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/debugging-performance-issues.md#request-traces https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/debuggin... (you need to install elasticsearch and stuff for it of course: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/installing-logging-metrics-traces.md#elasticsearch-kibana-prometheus--grafana-setup https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/installi... ) And assigning a custom domain: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-a-custom-domain.md#apply-from-a-file https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-a-... ... okay, I was hoping that I can specify a whole URL where to mount the "app" (something like https://my.fancy.pants.tld/api/app2/ https://my.fancy.pants.tld/api/app2/ It seems to me that the weakest part of this is build currently. Mostly because that's what's pretty linear and one-off, and well explored by other projects (GitLab CI/CD can easily run on and deploy to k8s), and knative is mostly about serving and eventing, meaning all the interaction between the lifecycles of stuff on k8s.
hrktb 8y ago
Interesting. I had to learn Kubernetes very recently and this seems to simplify a lot of the boilerplate needed to have an app running. One the most grating part for me was having the ingress run with a proper SSL certificate with the right handshakes though (had to install a nginx controller just for that). That’s the kind of things that everyone will go through, and is solved in one click on heroku. Yet it seems to be left out of all the samples, if it’s out of the scope that diminishes a lot the appeal.
- pas 8y ago
  I think there's a Kong ingress controller, that gets you a very powerful nginx setup. https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller https://github.com/Kong/kubernetes-ingress-controller Knative uses parts of Istio for servign and TLS/SSL setup: https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-an-ssl-cert.md https://github.com/knative/docs/blob/master/serving/using-an... It's a bit funny that knative serving is so complicated I have still no idea what they use under the many layers of abstraction (probably something hacked together in go), and I don't understand why don't they use a generic configurable ingress component.

gdsdfe 8y ago

You basically have a git repo that contains your business logic implemented as 'functions' and some configuration : knative will build, containerize, deploy, and glue/route those functions for you to make it a full fledged app. it will also take care of load balancing/scaling etc. So all you need really is focus on you business logic code and write some config for knative ... well this is at least the vision

djhworld 8y ago
Why isn't a polished version of this the blurb?
- gdsdfe 8y ago
  They need to hire me :)
  - dewitt 8y ago
    Email me. : ) We're hiring. I'm dewitt@ all the obvious places.
hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
How would this compare to something like serverless.com?
- gdsdfe 8y ago
  not sure they seem quite similar (I am not familiar with neither to be honest) but the main difference in my opinion is this is built on open source and backed by the big boys : google, IBM, SAP ..etc
- markusthoemmes 8y ago
  The serverless.com framework is built around existing serverless/faas platforms and allows you to write vendor-agnostic functions and deploy them exchangeably. It does not provide the resources to run your code. it abstracts away different API of different vendors to make them seem as one. Knative on the other hand provides building blocks to eventually build a serverless platform. It provides the resources necessary to run and scale your application. In short: You could use the serverless.com framework to deploy applications/functions on knative. But you still need some layer actually running your workload, like knative.