Alibaba Cloud SAE Releases Five New Features & The Open Source Folks Talk - Apsara 2022

Date: Oct 1, 2022

1. From Dedicated to General-Purpose: SAE Is Naturally Suitable for the Large-Scale Implementation of Enterprise Core Businesses Apsara conference 2022

Different from Serverless in FaaS form, SAE is application-centered and provides application-oriented UI and API. It does not change the application programming model and deployment method. This ensures a consistent development and deployment experience on traditional servers for customers. It can be used to carry out local development, debugging, and monitoring conveniently. This reduces the threshold for customers to use Serverless and achieves zero transformation and smooth migration for enterprise online applications. This is also the reason SAE helps Serverless transform from a dedicated service to a universal one, breaking the implementation boundary of Serverless. Serverless is used in frontend, full-stack, Apsara conference 2022 and small programs, and backend microservices, SaaS services, and IoT applications can also be built on Serverless. Serverless is naturally suitable for the large-scale implementation of enterprise core businesses Apsara conference 2022.

2. From Complex to Simple: SAE Is Naturally Suitable for Zero-Threshold Containerization of Enterprises Apsara conference 2022

Different from open-source and self-built microservices, SAE provides a full set of microservice governance capabilities with out-of-the-box features that have been testified by Double 11. Customers do not need to consider framework selection, not to mention data isolation, distributed transactions, circuit breaking, and throttling and degradation. They also don't need to worry about secondary customized development because of limited community maintenance efforts. With Serverless, you can achieve seamless migration of Spring Cloud/Dubbo without transformation. Based on making SAE open-source, we have also enhanced advanced features, such as lossless enabling and disabling, service authentication, and full-process grayscale. With SAE, users do not have to pay attention to the technical details of Kubernetes. Enterprise applications could enjoy zero-threshold containerization. SAE allows users to build images automatically. Moreover, various methods, such as WAR, JAR, PHP, and zip packages, are provided to lower the threshold for customers to generate Docker images Apsara conference 2022. With SAE, users do not have to consider complex network and storage plug-in adaptation of K8s. This helps each application instance match with an IP address that is interconnected in VPC for data persistence in the storage system. With SAE, users do not have to worry about the upgrading and O&M of Kubernetes and the stability risks caused by version upgrades. Users also do not have to pay attention to the process of Kubernetes connecting to monitoring components and elastic controllers. SAE provides white-screen end-to-end observability and flexible and diverse elastic policy configurations. Users can continue using the original packaging and deployment methods to enjoy the benefits of Kubernetes Apsara conference 2022.

3. Five New Features: Highlight the New Advantages of Serverless and Extend the Boundary of Serverless Apsara conference 2022

Elasticity 2.0 is the first hybrid elastic strategy in the industry, supporting the mixing of timing and metric strategies. Based on the capabilities of open-source Kubernetes, SAE enriches TCP connections and metrics trigger elasticity of SLB QPS/RT. SAE also supports setting the step size of scaling, cooldown time, and other advanced elastic settings Apsara conference 2022.

The Speed of Java Cold Start Is Improved by 40%: Based on the enhanced AppCDS start-up acceleration technology of Alibaba Dragonwell 11, the process of the first start of the application is saved in the cache. Later, users can start the application through the cache. Compared with standard OpenJDK, the speed of cold start is improved by 40% Apsara conference 2022.

Extreme Deployment Efficiency (15 Seconds): Based on the underlying full-process upgrades, security sandbox container 2.0, and image acceleration, the extreme end-to-end deployment consumes 15 seconds Apsara conference 2022.

All-in-One PHP Application Hosting: Support direct deployment of SAE with PHP zip packages and provide runtime environment selection and application monitoring capabilities of PHP Apsara conference 2022

Richer Developer Tool Chain: In addition to developer tools, such as Cloudtoolkit, CLI, and VSCode, Terraform and Serverless Devs are newly supported. Based on resource orchestration capabilities, SAE applications and related cloud resources can be deployed conveniently, making environment building easier Apsara conference 2022.

Background - Coming from Internal Incubation and External Push
Anolis OS has accumulated a lot before coming out.

As early as 2010, Anolis was born inside Alibaba. In the early days of its establishment, it was destined to replace CentOS and contribute to China's basic software field. The Anolis OS has been polished in Alibaba for decades. It has supported the large-scale practice of Tmall Double 11 over the years. Its stability, security, and performance have withstood severe tests Apsara conference 2022.

Three months after the open-source of Anolis OS, the shocking news of CentOS EOL came out. In December 2020, CentOS announced that it planned to stop maintaining the CentOS Linux project. At that time, CentOS was widely used in government affairs, telecommunications, finance, energy, the Internet, and other industries. The EOL brought severe challenges to users in various industries in China. It also provided new opportunities for the development of the domestic operating system industry. In October 2021, Anolis OS was unveiled at the Alibaba Cloud Apsara Conference. Its appearance has filled the gap, waiting for the test of time Apsara conference 2022.