By now, it is safe to say that most developers are familiar with the cloud computing revolution and buzzword terms associated with it, as the technology has been around for some time. Still, there are some stragglers to the cloud party and the waters around cloud services and Serverless computing can be a bit cloudy, even for veteran programmers and project managers. A lot of devs still think of cloud in terms of strictly storage, as an example, which is really just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what cloud services and technology have to offer.
For today’s topic, we will discuss a new(ish) product in the cloud world from IBM. IBM has recently announced Cloud Code (released in 2020). In this cloud computing and cloud development tutorial, we will discuss what IBM Cloud Code Engine is, its various use cases for developers, and Code Engine’s benefits for programmers. We will even provide a brief frequently asked questions (FAQ) on the cloud product. So buckle up – there is a lot to cover!
What is IBM Cloud Code Engine?
IBM Cloud Code Engine is a new Serverless compute service that lets developers run application containers, code, and batch jobs in a fully managed container runtime. It allows development teams to have all of their cloud-native needs even if they do not have cloud-native skills or knowledge. This lets the development team live the dream of focusing on code instead of managing headaches or cloud infrastructure issues. It also practically helps to fill the knowledge-gap in cloud technologies.
IBM Cloud Code Engine was released by the tech giant IBM in order to help create modern containerized applications and microservices-based on the cloud Serverless development environments. For developers who hate distractions and just want to run their code, Code Engine is architected to match their needs. It is also great for eliminating the operations burden on Kubernetes, from building to deploying and maintaining workloads, freeing developers to focus again on source code.
IBM Cloud Code Engine is a Serverless service as a platform designed to run containerized workloads in a fully managed way. With run-to-completion characteristics, IBM Cloud Code supports many workload types like microservices, event-driven functions, interactive, http-driven web apps, and “run-to-completion” batch jobs.
It can also build complete container images on your behalf from the source code directly. It is a conceivable task since the Code Engine platform is hosted within the same workloads and they are smoothly compatible. In this experiential approach, Code Engine is designed to forget about infrastructure configuration and management issues.
Read: An Introduction to Microservices.
IBM Cloud Code Engine Use Cases
IBM Cloud Code Engine is completely integrated into the IBM Cloud platform, which can also automate many manual functions for software developers, such as:
- Taking source code to build a container image and combining it with the runtime environment “buildpack“.
- Managing clusters and the underlying infrastructure from provisioning to scaling, configuring, and managing servers.
- Pay as you go: Only use resources as your need; no paying for more resources than you actually use. There is autoscaling for containers; up and down and up to zero.
- Open-source based: This ensures containers are portable. Code Engine is built on open-source platforms like Kubernetes, Tekton, Knative, and Isti.
The use cases of IBM Code Engine can be endless, including:
- Run a container: IBM Cloud Code Engine is used mainly for deploying and managing container images and clusters without the need for any kind of administration.
- Deployment source code: choose your desired programming language and just click on “push” to send your source code to IBM cloud. It will be containerized automatically – just choose your desired object storage or databases.
- Create batch jobs: using Code Engine, you can easily create run-to-completion batch jobs for nonevent-driven and AI data model processing.
- Run workloads with intermittent spikes, like a website that alternates from bursts of activity and periods of inactivity.
- Test a small application to get a proof-of-concept: with Code Engine you can test the application without the usual cost of a dedicated cluster.
IBM Code Engine Benefits
IBM Cloud Engine has some amazing capabilities developers can benefit from, including:
- High speed: You can get results in just minutes from a code to a container.
Focus on the code: Developers can forget about cloud issues and maintenance tasks and focus on coding. - High security: There is no doubt of the full security of TLS and isolation.
- Unified experience: Make the whole process part of your team’s everyday routine.
- Full support for containers: Kuberntes, Dockerfile and Cloud Native Buildpack.
- Private workloads: You can get a private workspace in the cloud for your images and registries.
- Full IBM Cloud integration: Benefit from the full batch of IBM Cloud services.
- Event-driven workloads: Expand your application’s functionality via messages from event producers.
- Control access: As is the case with every other cloud service, you can assign access permissions of your resources per the project’s requirements.
- Single runtime environment: Take any workload that fits your team’s needs without requiring much skills in Serverless products.
- Simple security: Get pod security policies, resource quotas, and limit ranges.
- No Kubernetes complexity: Hide every Cluster’s complexity; no need for training and configuring.
IBM Code Engine FAQ
Below are some frequently asked questions regarding IBM Code Engine.
- What is the relation between Code Engine and Kubernetes? Despite Code Engine being based on Kubernetes, it aims to simplify using containers and hides all surface complexities. However, Kubernetes lovers can still also access Kubernetes tools.
- Can you run batch jobs via Code Engine? Code Engine can run batch jobs in containers, as well as, offering support for various workloads. Code Engine runs large-scale batch jobs in parallel.
- Is IBM Cloud Code Engine able to build a container image from scratch for those who can’t do this themselves? Of course – that is one of the reasons Code Engine was developed; the entire goal is for developers to just relax and focus on developing their source code and Push the code via Git repo. Cloud Code will make the container, whether Dockerfile or Cloud Native Buildpack.
- How does IBM Cloud Code Engine help developers? Cloud Code allows developers to select the runtime feature instead of getting lost in a maze of cloud hosting platforms (CaaS, PaaS, FaaS). It also shortens runtime hosting to let them devote themselves to coding more and focusing on their original job, even in a single user experience.
