PaaS platforms like Cloud Foundry, container orchestrators like Kubernetes, Serverless platforms like OpenWhisk and Service-mesh like Istio are all great technologies to deploy and manage your microservices on. Common wisdom says there is no such thing as too many choices, but abundance of choices can lead to analysis paralysis. In this code, we look at deployment experience the different platforms provide, and what do we gain and lose by choosing one vs another.
We start with a sample Node.js monolithic application, Flightassist, factor it into two microservices, and then use it for demonstrating and comparing various deployment technologies. A set of trade-offs and comparisions can be made between these deployment models, and this application provides a basis for those discussions.
- Cloud Foundry
- Kubernetes Clusters
- Istio
- OpenWhisk
- Cloudant NoSQL Database
- Insights for Weather
- TripIt Developer API
- FlightStats Developer API
Register and obtain the keys for FlightStats Developer API and TripIt Developer API to query flight status.
When signing up for a FlightStats developer key, note that there is a review process that may take 24 hours or more to get your application credentials activated for a 30-day trial with the API.
Click the button to deploy your app and fill in all the variables from Delivery Pipeline. For Further instructions, please follow the Toolchain instructions.
You should see a link under the Cloud Foundry Deploy stage and that's where your application is hosting.
Toolchain Scenario Two: Microservices on Kubernetes Clusters, with or without Serverless capabilities
If you want to deploy with microservices, please leave the OpenWhisk Auth variable blank on Delivery Pipeline. Otherwise, fill in the OpenWhisk Auth variable to enable serverless for your Flightassist.
Then, click View logs and history under Kubernetes Deploy stage in your pipeline to access your application via the URL link at the end of your logs.
- Provision application services - Cloudant Database and Insights for Weather Service
- Deploy monolithic application
- Factor monolithic application into microservices and test
After you deployed Flightassist using any platform, you can go to How to Use Flightassist and start testing your application.
First, clone and get in our repository to obtain the necessary files and scripts for building this example.
git clone https://github.com/IBM/Microservices-deployment-with-PaaS-Containers-and-Serverless-Platforms.git && cd Microservices-deployment-with-PaaS-Containers-and-Serverless-PlatformsSince we need to create services using the command line, we need to install Bluemix CLI before proceeding to the following steps.
We will use Bluemix's The Cloudant NoSQL database service and Insights for Weather service for our database and weather data. Therefore, run the following commands to create cloudant and Insights for Weather service.
For this example, we recommend you name your services to mycloudant and myweatherinsights.
bx service create cloudantNoSQLDB Lite mycloudant
bx service create weatherinsights Free-v2 myweatherinsightsBefore moving on, the demo application is missing code to create the databases used to cache API responses in your newly created Cloudant instance. You can run the following commands with your cloudant URL to create the databases.
bx service key-create mycloudant {service key} #You can put any name for your {service key}
bx service key-show mycloudant {service key} #This will output your cloudant credential, "url" is Your cloudant URL
curl -k -X PUT {your-cloudantURL}/trips
curl -k -X PUT {your-cloudantURL}/weather
curl -k -X PUT {your-cloudantURL}/connectionsIn this scenario, we will deploy Flightassist as a monolithic application and host it on Cloud Foundry.
First, type the following commands to push your application with your own unique application name.
bx app push {your_unique_app_name} -f main_application/manifest.ymlNote: If you want to use
cfcommands, please install cloudfoundry CLI and runcf push {your_unique_app_name} -f main_application/manifest.yml
Now, go to https://console.ng.bluemix.net/dashboard/apps and select your application. Click the Runtime settings for your application and add these four environment variables to set up external credentials to the TripIt and FlightStats services:
FLIGHTSTATS_APP_ID: application ID assigned by FlightStatsFLIGHTSTATS_APP_KEY: application key assigned by FlightStatsTRIPIT_API_KEY: API key assigned by TripItTRIPIT_API_SECRET: API secret assigned by TripItBASE_URL: your URL for accessing your application. e.g. https://{app_name}.mybluemix.net/
Your application should restart automatically but can be done manually as well in the UI. With the service bindings and added environment variables, the application should be operational at the hostname route you selected for your CF application.
Congratulations, now you can learn about How to Use Flightassist and start testing your application.
To factor the application into microservices, we add a python microservice to the picture. Instead of directly accessing the apis from Node app, the python program will serve as a proxy to query. This step locally tests the app with the microservice and associated docker container images which are created.
First, install Docker CLI.
Next, edit the docker-compose.yaml file and add your credentials for FLIGHTSTATS_APP_ID, FLIGHTSTATS_APP_KEY, TRIPIT_API_KEY,TRIPIT_API_SECRET,CLOUDANT_URL, and WEATHER_URL. Create a key for the weather service and then run the following commands to view the service urls.
bx service key-create myweatherinsights {service key} #You can put any name for your {service key}
bx service keys {service_name} #This will output all your service keys for the {service_name}
bx service key-show {service_name} {service key} #This will output your service credential, "url" is Your service URLThen, run the following commands to build your docker images and run Docker Compose.
docker build -f main_application/Dockerfile.local -t flightassist main_application
docker build -f flightassist-weather/Dockerfile.alpine -t weather-service flightassist-weather
docker-compose upNow, your FlightAssist application should be running on http://localhost:3000/
Now you know to deploy your application and microservices on your local host. So let's deploy your application and microservice on the cloud with these 4 different scenarios.
To try out Flightassist, you need to add a trip on TripIt. Then, add at least one flight for your trip with a departure within the next 24 hours. In your plan, please fill in your confirmation number or airline with flight number.
Once you added a new plan and you have your Flightassist running, open your Flightassist and click Authenticate with TripIt to login to Flightassist.
Now you can see the most recent flight status and weather for all your flights within 24 hours.
This project is based on this flightassist example.
Phil Estes and Lin Sun are the main contributors for the flightassist example.