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Implementing Serverless PHP: Under The Hood of Openwhisk

This document discusses implementing serverless PHP using Apache OpenWhisk. It begins by explaining serverless computing and Functions as a Service (FaaS). It then demonstrates how to write a simple "Hello World" application in PHP and deploy it to OpenWhisk. The document notes that initial attempts had slow execution times due to container startup latency. It then proposes writing a PHP action runner to address this issue by handling PHP execution in a separate process. This allows PHP actions on OpenWhisk to execute much faster, in around 500 milliseconds.

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38 views35 pages

Implementing Serverless PHP: Under The Hood of Openwhisk

This document discusses implementing serverless PHP using Apache OpenWhisk. It begins by explaining serverless computing and Functions as a Service (FaaS). It then demonstrates how to write a simple "Hello World" application in PHP and deploy it to OpenWhisk. The document notes that initial attempts had slow execution times due to container startup latency. It then proposes writing a PHP action runner to address this issue by handling PHP execution in a separate process. This allows PHP actions on OpenWhisk to execute much faster, in around 500 milliseconds.

Uploaded by

LotfiBennour
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Implementing Serverless PHP

Under the hood of OpenWhisk


 
Rob Allen
Serverless?
 
The first thing to know about serverless computing is that
"serverless" is a pretty bad name to call it.
- Brandon Butler, Network World

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


AKA: Functions as a Service
• A runtime to execute your functions
• No capacity planning or load balancing; just tasks being executed.
• Pay for execution, not when idle

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Common tasks
• Microservices / API backends
• Volatile workloads (that break down in pieces)
• Data processing
• Event processing (message queues)
• Scheduled tasks
• Chat bots

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Challenges
• Start up latency
• Time limit
• State is external
• DevOps is still a thing

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


It's about value

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Serverless implementations
Apache OpenWhisk (IBM, Adobe, RedHat)
AWS Lambda
Google Cloud Functions
Microsoft Azure Cloud Functions
Iron.io

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


OpenWhisk is Open Source

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


JavaScript

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Hello world in JS
hello.js:
1 function main(params)
2 {
3 name = params.name || "World"
4 return {msg: 'Hello ' + name}
5 }

Create action:
$ wsk action create helloJS hello.js --web true --kind nodejs:6
ok: updated action helloJS

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Hello world in JS
Execute:
$ wsk action invoke -r helloJS -p name Rob
{
"msg": "Hello Rob"
}

or:
$ curl -k https://192.168.33.13/api/v1/web/guest/default/helloJS.json
{
"msg": "Hello World"
}

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


PHP

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Hello world in PHP
hello.php:
1 <?php
2 function main(array $args) : array
3 {
4 $name = $args["name"] ?? "World";
5 return [ "msg" => "Hello $name" ];
6 }

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Dockerise
exec:
1 #!/bin/bash
2
3 # Install PHP
4 if [ ! -f /usr/bin/php ]; then
5 echo "http://dl-cdn.alpinelinux.org/alpine/edge/community" \
6 >> /etc/apk/repositories
7 apk add --update php7 php7-json
8 fi
9
10 # Run PHP action
11 /usr/bin/php -r 'require "/action/hello.php";
12 echo json_encode(main(json_decode($argv[1], true)));' -- "$@"

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Create & Execute action
1 $ zip -r hello.zip hello.php exec
2
3 $ wsk action create helloPHP hello.zip --web true --docker
4 ok: updated action helloPHP
5
6 $ wsk action invoke -r helloPHP -p name Rob
7 {
8 "msg": "Hello Rob"
9 }

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Time to execute: 7 seconds

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Solution:
Write a PHP action runner!

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


OpenWhisk's Architecture

 
 
(Thanks Philippe Suter for the original architecture diagrams)

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


OpenWhisk's Architecture

 
 
(Thanks Philippe Suter for the original architecture diagrams)

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Create an action

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Invoke an action

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Action container lifecycle
• Hosts the user-written code
• Controlled via two end points: /init & /run

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Action Container API
POST /init POST /run
input { {
"value": { "value": {
"name" : "helloPHP", "name" : "Rob",
"main" : "main", }
"binary": false, }
"code" : "<?php …",
}
}

output { "OK": true} `{"msg": "Hello Rob" }

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Writing a PHP action container
We need:
• A container
• Code to handle endpoints (router)
• Execute the user code (runner)

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Dockerfile
FROM php:7.1-alpine

# copy required files


ADD router.php /action
ADD runner.php /action

# Start webserver on port 8080


EXPOSE 8080
CMD [ "php", "-S", "0.0.0.0:8080", "/action/router.php" ]

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


router.php
1 <?php
2 if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == '/init') {
3 $result = init();
4 } elseif ($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI'] == '/run') {
5 $result = run();
6 }
7
8 /* send response */
9 header('Content-Type: application/json');
10 echo json_encode((object)$result);

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


router.php: init()
1 function init()
2 {
3 $post = file_get_contents('php://input');
4 $data = json_decode($post, true)['value'];
5
6 file_put_contents('index.php', $data['code']);
7
8 $config = ['function' => $data['main'], 'file' => 'index.php'];
9 file_put_contents('config.json', json_encode($config));
10
11 return ["OK" => true];
12 }

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


router.php: run()
1 function run()
2 {
3 $config = file_get_contents('config.json');
4 $args = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://input'), true)['value'];
5
6 list($code, $out, $err) = runPHP('runner.php', $config, $args);
7
8 $pos = strrpos($stdout, PHP_EOL) + 1;
9 $lastLine = trim(substr($stdout, $pos));
10
11 file_put_contents("php://stderr", $stderr);
12 file_put_contents("php://stdout", $stdout);
13
14 return $lastLine;
15 }

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


runner.php
Runs the user's code in a separate process
1 <?php
2 $config = json_decode($argv[1], true);
3 $functionName = $config['function'] ?? 'main';
4
5 $args = json_decode(file_get_contents('php://stdin') ?? [], true);
6
7 require '/action/vendor/autoload.php';
8 require '/action/src/index.php';
9 $result = $_functionName($args);
10
11 echo json_encode((object)$result);

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Hello world in PHP
hello.php:
1 <?php
2 function main(array $args) : array {
3 $name = $args["name"] ?? "World";
4 return [ "msg" => "Hello $name" ];
5 }
$ wsk action create hello hello.php --web true --kind php:7.1
ok: updated action hello

$ wsk action invoke -r hello -p name Rob


{
"msg": "Hello Rob"
}

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Time to execute: 500 milliseconds

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Let's look at some code!

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Summary

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Resources
• https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html
• http://www.openwhisk.org
• https://medium.com/openwhisk

• http://github.com/apache/incubator-openwhisk/pull/2415
• https://github.com/akrabat/ow-php-ftime

Rob Allen ~ @akrabat


Thank you!
 
 
 
 
 
Rob Allen ~ @akrabat

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