FaaS is a platform for building serverless functions on Docker Swarm Mode with first class metrics. Any UNIX process can be packaged as a function in FaaS enabling you to consume a range of web events without repetitive boiler-plate coding.
- Each container has a watchdog process that hosts a web server allowing a JSON post request to be forwarded to a desired process via STDIN. The response is sent to the caller via STDOUT.
- A gateway provides a view to the containers/functions to the public Internet and collects metrics for Prometheus and will manage replicas and auto-scale as throughput increases.
Read the story of FaaS on my blog or find out more about the project below.
- Docker 1.13 (to support attachable overlay networks)
- At least a single host in Swarm Mode. (run
docker swarm init)
You can test-drive FaaS with a set of sample functions as defined in docker-compose.yml on play-with-docker.com for free, or on your own laptop.
Highlights:
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Ease of use through UI portal
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Setup a working environment with one script
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Portable - runs on any hardware
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Baked-in Prometheus metrics
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Any container can be a function
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Auto-scales as demand increases
Here is a screenshot of the API gateway portal - designed for ease of use.
FaaS is still expanding and growing, check out the developments around:
- Auto-scaling through Prometheus alerts
- Prometheus alert example
- Invoke functions through UI
- Create new functions through UI
- Various sample functions
- ARM / Raspberry Pi support
See how to deploy FaaS onto play-with-docker.com and Docker Swarm in 1-2 minutes. See the sample functions in action and watch the graphs in Prometheus as we ramp up the amount of requests.
Prometheus is built into FaaS and the sample stack, so you can check throughput for each function individually with a rate function in the UI at port 9090 on your Swarm manager.
If you are new to Prometheus, you can start learning about metrics and monitoring on my blog:
