Serverless Devs

Preface

On June 15, 2022, the Chinese Academy of Communications released the "Server Free Architecture Based Tool Chain Capability Requirements" standard at the China Academy of Communications Cloud Native Industry Conference, marking the official release of the world's first cloud native serverless open tool chain model! Serverless Devs [1], as an open source developer tool, actively participates in the construction of tool chain models, playing a catalytic role in establishing unified standards in the industry.

With the development of cloud computing and the increasing popularity of cloud natives, the Serverless architecture has emerged and developed rapidly. Not only has it been paid attention to by more developers, but its market share has also increased year by year. However, there are significant differences in the Serverless services provided by various platforms in the industry, which virtually increases the cost of learning, development, debugging, and migration for users. The Serverless services that various cloud vendors and open source frameworks can provide (both in terms of capabilities, product form, and user experience) are different. Therefore, when many developers choose to use Serverless, their biggest concern is the vendor binding issue.

In the "China Cloud Native User Survey 2021" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications in 2021, it was explicitly mentioned that before adopting Serverless technology, 31.69% of users would consider vendor binding issues, and 30.62% would consider the completeness of relevant toolsets.

What these data reveal is actually the strong demand and desire of developers for improving the tool chain.

Based on this phenomenon, the world's first cloud native Serverless open tool chain model released by the China Academy of Communications aims to integrate the differences between different implementations, abstract a set of effective tool chain specifications, unify the operating experience of Serverless applications throughout their lifecycle, and drive the standardized development and widespread implementation of Serverless technology.

Serverless Open Tool Chain Model

As an open source developer tool, Serverless Devs has been aiming to improve the R&D efficiency of Servexpress applications since its inception, with the principle of making the Serverless architecture more usable and easy to use. It is expected to play an important role in the entire lifecycle of Serverless applications.

Serverless Devs is not only consistent with the model ideas released by the ICT Academy at the tool chain positioning level (both hope to help developers improve their research and development efficiency, reduce learning costs, and enhance their sense of happiness through the construction of the full lifecycle management capabilities of Serverless applications), but also highly consistent with the model at the functional support level and in the product form of the tool chain.

Model Interpretation

The standard "Capability Requirements for Tool Chain Based on Serverless Architecture" released by the ICT Academy this time stipulates the standardization and unification of the experience layer of the Serverless architecture tool chain. This can reduce user usage and migration costs, help shield the differences between different implementations, and promote the widespread application of serverless architecture technology.

(Issued by China Academy of Information and Communications)

"Capability Requirements for Tool Chain Based on Serverless Architecture": Starting from the capability framework, the basic form of the Serverless tool chain is specified through several aspects such as access scope, usage method, and operation form; Through the stages of initial configuration, application development, application debugging, application packaging, deployment and release, and application offline, the scope of capabilities of the Serverless tool chain, namely, full life cycle management capabilities, has been specified in more detail;

Finally, through the description of support capabilities (including but not limited to authorization management, trigger management, application management, operation and maintenance management, research and operation management, etc.) and open capabilities (including but not limited to extension development, component management, etc.), the specific form and required functions of the Serverless tool chain are further described.

Through this model, the Serverless developer tools provided by various platforms will become more unified and standardized.

For users, it is quite necessary to make standardized requirements for the tool chain capabilities of a serverless architecture. The release of this model can enable serverless user experiences that are more fragmented across different platforms to evolve towards a unified and standardized form, eliminating concerns about user vendor lock-in.

The Serverless tool chain project implemented through this model can enable developers to achieve a more consistent development and usage experience, even using Serverless products or services provided by different platforms. Take the debugging function as an example: The model believes that the tool should provide debugging capabilities based on the local environment, preferably supporting local debugging in a sandbox environment, preferably supporting end-to-end cloud debugging, and can support cloud debugging.

In addition, through such a protocol, it can also help manufacturers actively develop construction ideas, identify deficiencies, and supplement the capabilities that their own tools should possess. This has extremely high value and strategic significance for the unified and standardized construction of the industry and improving user research and development efficiency.

It is also worth noting that in the "Requirements for the Capability of Tool Chains Based on Serverless Architecture", there are also descriptions of related capabilities such as extended development and component management, which can reflect the important attitude of the ICT Academy towards the open ecosystem of tool chains.

Serverless Devs

Since the official open source of Serverless Devs in October 2020, in line with the idea of promoting the standardization and unification of domain developers, it has been continuously striving for the continuous prosperity of the developer ecosystem and the optimization of user experience level standards.

Innovation and upgrading

Based on the open source and open construction of the Serverless Devs developer tool, the "Tool Chain Capability Requirements Based on Serverless Architecture" released by the ICT Academy innovatively proposes the Serverless Devs Model on the basis of open source, and provides external developer tools and Registry ecology based on the model.

This part will be built with an ecological foundation approach. Through this set of experiences, developers can quickly adapt to the framework layer and play an important role and value in their own applications.

Provide developers with a more unified functional experience, such as application management, publishing, operation and maintenance deployment, and also provide developers with a more unified use experience for multiple cloud platforms, such as public cloud and hybrid cloud.

Based on the best practices of the model and open source community, the Serverless Devs developer tool and Serverless Registry provide enterprises or developers with Serverless services that quickly deploy their business to multiple platforms.

Each cloud platform or Serverless service provider can also provide users with a more standardized and unified tool chain, application center, and best practices through this ecological foundation.

I remember when the Serverless Devs community introduced Serverless Devs and Serverless Registry to the person in charge of the Laf community, the person in charge of the Laf community excitedly said, "Python has Pypi in it, Node.js has Npm in it, and Serverless Registry in the Serverless field. Working with developers can make unlimited possibilities, which is the foundation of ecology. This is too structured and significant."

As a non vendor locked, open source and open source serverless developer tool, Serverless Devs continuously empowers serverless innovation and upgrading, and is able to flexibly and freely provide full lifecycle management capabilities for serverless developers and vendor users on different platforms. This is our long-term goal.

Taking Alibaba Cloud Functional Computing (FC) as an example, Serverless Devs can play an important role in multiple fields such as initialization, development, debugging, deployment, and operation and maintenance.

Alibaba Cloud has built a Serverless Application Center based on Serverless Devs [2], providing developers with very standard GitOps capabilities, helping them manage and operate Serverless applications from an application perspective, including related functions such as environment partitioning.

Deji Group is based on the Serverless architecture to divide different environments, and through the support of different functions, it helps comprehensively accelerate the improvement of development and operation and maintenance efficiency.

The students from the team of Deji Group commented on Serverless Devs as follows: "The emergence of open source Serverless Devs has smoothed out the differences between platforms, helped us developers quickly deploy to different cloud platforms, dispelled users' anxiety about entering the pit, and also provided time for manufacturers to jointly negotiate and unify standards. Therefore, it is not difficult to see that the functions of Serverless Devs are indeed continuously satisfying users. The fundamental goal, attitude, and ideas of its construction are also shared with developers Standing at the same angle. Of course, we are also making constant efforts to contribute to the standardization of the experience layer and the prosperity of the industry. "

In addition to the choice of cloud vendors and enterprises, the open source community also has a close cooperative relationship with Serverless Devs. The sandbox project OpenFunction of CNCF is also planning to build its developer tool chain system based on Serverless Devs. The person in charge of the community also expressed, "Serverless Devs has solved the issue of various specifications for the FaaS platform by creating an open source, non vendor lockdown serverless application lifecycle management tool." He also stated that the OpenFunction community will step up cooperation with the Serverless Devs community to enable users to use unified and standardized OpenFunction functions for management.

epilogue

On the one hand, Serverless Devs focuses on safety and on improving research and development efficiency; On the other hand, we are also very concerned about whether it is "grounded", whether developers can use it easily, and whether it is easy to use; Can Serverless Devs really be used throughout the entire lifecycle of Serverless applications, helping research and development students better and faster enjoy the dividends brought by the Serverless architecture.

We also hope that Serverless Devs can continue to contribute to the development and ecological prosperity of the industry, whether it is promoting or participating in the release of the "Server Free Architecture Based Tool Chain Capability Requirements" by the ICT Academy, or establishing a Serverless developer community, publishing a Serverless developer manual, or organizing various types of Serverless Meetup offline activities. Serverless Devs has always hoped that through its own efforts, Be able to contribute to the industry.

In the future, Serverless Devs will not only serve as a developer tool to provide developers with a user-friendly serverless development experience without vendor lockdown, but also become a technology base that will gradually be adopted by more vendors and open source projects. Serverless Devs will continue to build and contribute to the standardization, prosperity, and contribution of the industry in the form of open source code and development ecology.