Knative: More Than Just Serverless Containers

The presentation discusses the benefits of using service-based applications and containers in DevOps, with a focus on K native and Cloud Run.

• Service-based applications allow developers to focus on code without worrying about infrastructure or low-level security details
• Containers provide a sealed context that can be replicated anywhere and offer flexibility in language and library choice
• K native is an open-source project that brings service to containers and runs anywhere Kubernetes runs
• Cloud Run is a managed version of K native on Google Cloud that simplifies the process of bringing service to containers
• An anecdote is provided to demonstrate the use of Cloud Eventing to trigger a service based on an uploaded image

The presenter demonstrates how Cloud Eventing can be used to trigger a service based on an uploaded image. The image is uploaded to Google Cloud Storage, which triggers a Pub/Sub message that is received by K native. The message is then brokered to the service, which uses the Vision API to extract labels from the image. The labels are then displayed, demonstrating the use of service-based applications and containers in DevOps.

As a new incubating project in the CNCF, Knative brings a full complement of “serverless” technologies to Kubernetes. One of the exciting new developments within Knative is the addition of Knative Functions, a developer-focused, function-based serverless experience, simplifying the knowledge and background required to quickly get projects up and running on a Kubernetes/Knative cluster. In this session, we will introduce Knative Functions with a brief overview of the technology, and a short demonstration showing use cases for local function development, building an OCI container image for a function, and finally deploying the function to a cluster. With this groundwork in place, we will open the panel up to discuss potential future capabilities, and integration with other Knative components.