1) The document discusses using microservices on Google Cloud Functions (GCF) for serverless applications. It outlines how GCF provides a serverless platform for building microservices without provisioning servers and with automatic scaling.
2) It addresses challenges with the serverless model like function failures, security, and deployment speed. It describes patterns used by Mabl to solve issues like decoupling services, handling changes, and making deployments fast.
3) It provides tips for optimizing performance and costs on GCF like right-sizing memory, caching objects, batching work, and direct billing integration for tracking usage. In conclusion, it advocates for embracing GCF microserverless for building low latency, event-
4. serverless just works
■ No Provisioning
■ Transparent Scaling
■ Event Driven
■ Pay only for Use
4
5. how developers deploy code
2014
2007 2013
VPS
Machine
Image
Docker
Containers
war File
AWS
Lambda
5
2000
Container Era
Serverless Era
Firebase
CF
Serverless functions
GCF
2016 2017
AF
6. event driven all the way
■ Only run code on events
▲ Cloud Storage blob changes
▲ Pubsub message arrival
▲ HTTP endpoint requests
▲ DB/Auth/Conversion changes
■ No machines consuming 2% CPU all day
6
10. gcf is the cheapest function provider
Vendor FREE req/mo req/$
Google Cloud Functions 2M 5M
Firebase Cloud Functions 2M 2.5M
AWS Lambda 1M 5M
Azure Functions 1M 5M
10
See full details in Google Spreadsheet calculator
* Also see execution time, bandwidth, and memory costs
11. gcf cheapest counting free monthly allowances
11
* Also see execution time, bandwidth, and memory costs
12. gcf differentiators
■ Largest possible function memory: 2 GBytes
■ Guaranteed CPU per memory allotment
■ Node first focus
■ Easy to use UI and tools
■ Stackdriver Logging & Error Reporting
Source: GCP Pricing, FB Pricing, AWS Lambda Pricing, Azure Pricing
12
24. how do you decouple services and handle discovery
■ We Don’t Do Discovery
■ Event Driven Queues
▲ HTTP endpoints for external services
▲ Blob change events for files
▲ Message queue events for everything else
■ No Daemons
▲ Don’t waste time spinning
24
26. how do you handle changing microservice/models?
■ Versioned Payloads over the wire
▲ New service can handle older versions
■ Add Consumers, then Suppliers
■ Upgrade, don’t replace
■ Lazy read repair
▲ Pessimistic data upgrade and transform
▲ Upgrade path from old version
26
27. how do make slow deploys fast?
■ Multi-repo git layout
■ File change exclusion masks
■ Deploy functions in parallel
■ Harness CI & CD (e.g. Codeship)
27
28. how do you handle GCG outages?
■ Durable Pubsub subscriptions
■ No microservices on fast path
▲ Backend processing
▲ Keep the UI and lights on via Firebase
■ It’s Beta ;)
28
29. request costs round up
■ Requests billed per 100ms
■ Increments round up
■ Faster functions are not always cheaper
▲ 17ms → 100ms
▲ 101ms → 200ms
29
Run Time:
17ms
Billed Time: 100ms
Wasted
Time
30. minimizing your request costs
■ Batch multiple fast work units to fill the time (e.g. 100ms chunks)
30
Work Unit:
17ms
Billed Time: 100ms
Work Unit:
17ms
Work Unit:
17ms
Work Unit:
17ms
Work Unit:
17ms
Wasted
Time
31. minimizing your request costs
31
■ Use a middle man to shield file events from high memory loads
▲ Filter/light weight checks in middle man
▲ Send heavy lifting to larger function
■ Different inputs to same service have different resource needs
▲ e.g. 90% requests need 128MB ram, 10% need 512GB
▲ e.g. 80% requests complete in 30s, 20s take 2min
35. track everything, from bits to cents
■ Metrics for every execution
▲ Every Byte of memory use
▲ Every Processor Cycle of runtime
▲ Every Byte of egress
▲ Every Invocation
■ Direct Billing to Big Query export
▲ Easy to explore and query (demo)
▲ Easy to visualize with Data Studio (demo)
35
39. billing tips
■ Label functions on deploy
▲ Labels propagated to billing
▲ Can track Memory, CPU, Invocation, Ingress, Egress costs per function
■ Don’t forget the egress bandwidth
▲ Keep your data stores in the same region (Iowa)
▲ GCF only deployable to Iowa
39
gcloud beta functions deploy <your_fn>
--labels=”app_name=<your_fn>”
...