Create and run event-driven apps that scale on demand
The Bluemix OpenWhisk server-less architecture accelerates innovation through creative chaining of microservices into highly scalable applications. By abstracting away infrastructure, OpenWhisk frees small teams to rapidly work on independent pieces of code simultaneously, keeping development focused solely on creating essential business logic.
Build chains of efficient and scalable microservices
Bluemix OpenWhisk, using rules to connect events with actions, allows you to compose microservices that OpenWhisk executes independently yet in parallel, promoting rapid development within and across teams, and ultimately accelerating innovation overall. Quickly chain microservices together to create business logic limited only by how your business wants to engage with its customers through applications or work with its engagement data.
Explore an open-ended ecosystem
Open source ensures that OpenWhisk evolves based on creative innovation in the development community, independent of the platform owner's business strategy. OpenWhisk provides an open ecosystem in which anyone can contribute their OpenWhisk action code as building blocks to the expanding repository.
Speed and simplify development
OpenWhisk promotes rapid development and accelerates innovation by providing an increasingly diverse streams of event producers and consumers. This event ecosystem will enable developers to quickly build apps and microservices that execute in response an increasingly event-driven world.
Leverage the benefits of cognitive services
OpenWhisk, by offering easy access to Watson APIs within the event-trigger-action workflow, makes cognitive analysis of application data inherent to your workflows.
Pay for what you actually use
It is simple: pay for actual use rather than pre-allocated capacity. Costs increase only as you determine business needs for constructing more OpenWhisk-intensive solutions or as existing solutions scale to support bigger loads.
Features
Multiple programming languages
You can create OpenWhisk microservices in Node.js and Swift—within an expanding list of supported languages.
Action chaining
Building chains of OpenWhisk microservices is language-independent. And how microservices built by different team connect with each other is determined by desired business outcome rather than coordinated technical compliance.
Asynchronous computing
OpenWhisk uses publication/subscription message queues, making its triggers always-on and its triggered actions efficiently asynchronous. Since OpenWhisk actions occur only when triggered, compute resources are used only when needed rather than being generally provisioned.
Integrated container support
Run your OpenWhisk actions in a Docker container, making the risk of vendor lock-in irrelevant while providing the flexibility to re-use even legacy code in your event handling microservices.
How it works
How do you build an application into OpenWhisk?
OpenWhisk works through rules that bind events and triggers to actions. Web and mobile applications often invoke OpenWhisk actions directly through API calls via the mobile SDK. More commonly, Watson or other Bluemix services invoke OpenWhisk actions by generating events to which OpenWhisk actions respond.
How does OpenWhisk operate?
When an event or an API call invokes an action, OpenWhisk creates a container to run the action in a runtime appropriate to the programming language used. OpenWhisk also can run custom-coded actions packaged in a Docker container.
How do you monitor performance?
Use the Dashboard's graphical summary of OpenWhisk actions to track their performance and health.
Learn more
Product resource
Prototype a mobile application with OpenWhisk