Serverless reference architecture for IBM Cloudant data processing with IBM Cloud Functions

This project deploys a reference architecture with IBM Cloud Functions to execute code in response to changes in a database. No code runs until change events arrive from IBM Cloudant (powered by Apache CouchDB). When that happens, function instances are started and automatically scale to match the load needed to process the database change events.

You can learn more about the benefits of building a serverless architecture for this use case in the accompanying IBM Code Pattern (TBD).

Deploy this reference architecture:

• Through the IBM Cloud Functions user interface.
• Or by using command line tools on your own system.

If you haven't already, sign up for an IBM Cloud account then go to the Cloud Functions dashboard to explore other reference architecture templates and download command line tools, if needed.

Included components

• IBM Cloud Functions (powered by Apache OpenWhisk)
• IBM Cloudant (powered by Apache CouchDB)

The application deploys two IBM Cloud Functions (based on Apache OpenWhisk) that read and write data to IBM Cloudant (powered by Apache CouchDB). This demonstrates how actions work with data services and execute logic in response to data change events.

One function, or action, posts a data record to Cloudant when invoked manually. A built in Cloudant package feed receives the change, which in turn triggers a sequence of actions (a way to link actions declaratively in a chain) to read and log the data that was received.

Deploy through the IBM Cloud Functions console user interface

Choose "Start Creating" and select "Deploy template" then "Cloudant Events" from the list. A wizard will then take you through configuration and connection to event sources step-by-step.

Behind the scenes, the UI uses the wskdeploy tool, which you can also use directly from the CLI by following the steps in the next section.

Deploy using the wskdeploy command line tool

This approach will deploy the Cloud Functions actions, triggers, and rules using the runtime-specific manifest file available in this repository.

• Download the latest bx CLI and Cloud Functions plugin.
• Download the latest wskdeploy CLI.
• Provision a Cloudant database instance, and name it openwhisk-cloudant. Log into the Cloudant web console and create a database named cats. On the "Service credentials" tab make sure to add a new credential named Credentials-1.
• Copy template.local.env to a new file named local.env and update the CLOUDANT_INSTANCE, CLOUDANT_DATABASE, CLOUDANT_USERNAME, and CLOUDANT_PASSWORD for your instance if they differ.

Deploy with wskdeploy

# Clone a local copy of this repository
git clone https://github.com/IBM/ibm-cloud-functions-refarch-data-processing-cloudant.git
cd ibm-cloud-functions-refarch-data-processing-cloudant

# Make service credentials available to your environment
source local.env
bx wsk package refresh

# Deploy the packages, actions, triggers, and rules using your preferred language
cd runtimes/nodejs # Or runtimes/[php|python|swift]
wskdeploy

Undeploy with wskdeploy

# Deploy the packages, actions, triggers, and rules
wskdeploy undeploy

Alternative deployment methods

Deploy manually with the bx wsk command line tool

This approach shows you how to deploy individual the packages, actions, triggers, and rules with CLI commands. It helps you understand and control the underlying deployment artifacts.

Deploy with IBM Continuous Delivery

This approach sets up a continuous delivery pipeline that redeploys on changes to a personal clone of this repository. It may be of interest to setting up an overall software delivery lifecycle around Cloud Functions that redeploys automatically when changes are pushed to a Git repository.

License

Apache 2.0