IBM Cloud Functions

Lithops with IBM Cloud Functions as compute backend.

Configuration

1. Login to IBM Cloud and open up your dashboard.

• Important Note: If you have a free/student account, please choose Option 1 one and start from step 8

Option 1 (CloudFoundy-based namespace):

By default, the IBM Cloud account provides an automatically created CloudFoundry namespace for your functions. Namespaces are only valid for the regions where they were created. If you don’t plan to create a new namespace to execute functions in another region, you can skip to step 8.

2. Navigate to your CloudFoundry account settings.

3. Click Create + and provide the necessary information.

4. Click Save to create the new CloudFoundry organization.

5. Click on your recently created organization.

6. Click Add a space + and provide the necessary information.

7. Click Save to create the space in the region you choose.

8. Navigate to the namespace settings of your Cloud Functions dashboard.

9. Choose your namespace from the “current namespace” dropdown menu.

10. Copy the full current namespace name and the API key. Usually, namepsace names in free accounts looks like your.name@myemail.com_dev, e.g, james.braun@gmail.com_dev

11. From the same page, check the Location of your namespace and select the appropriate endpoint from the table below.

12. Edit your lithops config and add the following keys:

    lithops:
        backend: ibm_cf
       
    ibm_cf:
        endpoint    : <REGION_ENDPOINT>
        namespace   : <NAMESPACE>
        api_key     : <API_KEY>
    

Option 2 (IBM IAM-based namespace):

2. Navigate to the namespace settings of your Cloud Functions dashboard.

3. Click on the “current namespace” dropdown menu.

4. Click Create Namespace + and provide the necessary information.

5. Click Create to create the IAM-based namespace in the region you choose.

6. Choose your new namespace from the “current namespace” dropdown menu.

7. From the same page, copy the namespace name and the namespace GUID.

8. From the same page, check the Location of your namespace and select the appropriate endpoint from the table below.

9. If you don’t have an IAM API key created, navigate to the IBM IAM dashboard.

10. Click Create an IBM Cloud API Key and provide the necessary information.

11. Copy the generated IAM API key (You can only see the key the first time you create it, so make sure to copy it).

12. Edit your lithops config and add the following keys:

    lithops:
        backend: ibm_cf
        
    ibm:
        iam_api_key: <IAM_API_KEY>
       
    ibm_cf:
        endpoint     : <REGION_ENDPOINT>
        namespace    : <NAMESPACE>
        namespace_id : <GUID>
    

IBM Cloud Functions Namespace Endpoints

Location	Endpoint
Washington DC	https://us-east.functions.cloud.ibm.com
Dallas	https://us-south.functions.cloud.ibm.com
London	https://eu-gb.functions.cloud.ibm.com
Frankfur	https://eu-de.functions.cloud.ibm.com
Tokyo	https://jp-tok.functions.cloud.ibm.com
Sydney	https://au-syd.functions.cloud.ibm.com

Summary of configuration keys for IBM Cloud:

IBM IAM:

Group	Key	Default	Mandatory	Additional info
ibm	iam_api_key		no	IBM Cloud IAM API key to authenticate against IBM COS and IBM Cloud Functions. Obtain the key here

IBM Cloud Functions:

Group	Key	Default	Mandatory	Additional info
ibm_cf	endpoint		yes	IBM Cloud Functions endpoint. Make sure to use https:// prefix, for example: https://us-east.functions.cloud.ibm.com
ibm_cf	namespace		yes	Value of CURRENT NAMESPACE from here
ibm_cf	api_key		no	Mandatory if using Cloud Foundry-based namespace. Value of ‘KEY’ from here
ibm_cf	namespace_id		no	Mandatory if using IAM-based namespace with IAM API Key. Value of ‘GUID’ from here
ibm_cf	max_workers	1200	no	Max number of workers per FunctionExecutor()
ibm_cf	worker_processes	1	no	Number of Lithops processes within a given worker. This can be used to parallelize function activations within a worker
ibm_cf	runtime		no	Docker image name.
ibm_cf	runtime_memory	256	no	Memory limit in MB. Default 256MB
ibm_cf	runtime_timeout	600	no	Runtime timeout in seconds. Default 600 seconds
ibm_cf	invoke_pool_threads	500	no	Number of concurrent threads used for invocation
ibm_cf	remote_invoker	False	no	Activate the remote invoker feature that uses one cloud function to spawn all the actual map() activations

Test Lithops

Once you have your compute and storage backends configured, you can run a hello world function with:

lithops test -b ibm_cf -s ibm_cos

Viewing the execution logs

You can view the function executions logs in your local machine using the lithops client:

lithops logs poll