WebAssembly beyond the browser: Let's conquer the cloud with WASM in AKS

WebAssembly is the next big thing on the server and in the cloud. By leveraging tools like krustlet, we can get rid of containers in Kubernetes! What does that mean? What can you achieve today, and what is still experimental? And how can you get hands-on right now? Join this talk by Azure MVP and cloud-native enthusiast Thorsten Hans to get those questions answered. It's time to embrace the platform of the future.

Transcript

1. Wasm workloads in Kubernetes Thorsten Hans @ThorstenHans Consultant Let‘s conquer the cloud with WebAssembly and krustlet
2. Consultant @ Thinktecture #Azure #Kubernetes #CloudNative #Terraform thorsten.hans@thinktecture.com thinktecture.com thorsten-hans.com @ThorstenHans Thorsten Hans
3. What we will cover today • Introduction • What is krustlet and how can I get it • Running WebAssembly workloads in Kubernetes • Conclusion Talking Points
4. What we will cover today • Introduction • What is krustlet and how can I get it • Running WebAssembly workloads in Kubernetes • Conclusion Talking Points
5. • WebAssembly (Wasm) • WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) • WebAssembly Gateway Interface (WAGI) Introduction
6. WebAssembly (Wasm) • Binary instruction format • Executed in a stack-based virutal machine Introduction
7. WebAssembly (Wasm) • Fast 🏃 • Near native execution performance, leveraging available hardware capabilities • Safe 💪 • Wasm is a sandboxed, memory-safe execution environment • Portable 🧊 • All major browsers support Wasm & multiple ”server” Wasm runtimes available Introduction
8. WebAssembly System Interface (WASI) • Platform Integration 🧬 • WASI is a wrapper for underlying platform (OS) capabilities • Think of things like File::open() • Secure 👮 • Permissions can be defined per app (module) • Future 🚀 • WASI could become the default compiling target for EVERYONE! Introduction
9. Portability Introduction https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/standardizing-wasi-a-webassembly-system-interface/
10. Security Introduction https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/standardizing-wasi-a-webassembly-system-interface/
11. Security Introduction https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/standardizing-wasi-a-webassembly-system-interface/
12. Security Introduction https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/standardizing-wasi-a-webassembly-system-interface/
13. Security Introduction https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/03/standardizing-wasi-a-webassembly-system-interface/
14. WebAssembly Gateway Interface (WAGI) • Use WebAssembly modules as HTTP handlers • Think of a hyper-focused microservices runtime • Comman Gateway Interface (CGI) implementation • HTTP headers become environment variables • HTTP payloads are piped to stdin • HTTP responses must be written to stdout Introduction
15. What we will cover today • Introduction • What is krustlet and how can I get it • Running WebAssembly workloads in Kubernetes • Conclusion Talking Points
16. Kubernetes-rust-kubelet • Krustlet is a kubelet written in Rust 🦀 • It responds to well-know Kubernetes requests like kubectl logs, kubectl describe, kubectl delete, … • Krustlet communicates with Kubernetes API server using HTTPs and reports status back like a regular kubelet, • Krustlet comes with providers. A provider specifies requirements for underlying Wasm runtime. Krustlet uses wastime by default, but you can choose a different provider such as WasmCloud or CRI What is krustlet
17. Kubernetes-rust-kubelet • It’s a binary – which attaches compute power to a Kubernetes cluster • Krustlet can be added to a wide variety of different Kubernetes distributions • Start small with dev environments like minikube or KIND • Grow to full blown Kubernetes distributions like bare metal Kubernetes or managed Kubernetes offerings like AKS, EKS, GKS What is krustlet
18. • Install krustlet with your Kubernetes cluster • krustlet is “Kubernetes-vendor” agnostic • Check https://docs.krustlet.dev/ for detailed installation guidance • Gain access to a container registry (must be OCI distribution spec compliant) • Azure Container Registry is used during this talk • Compile your code against wasm32-wasi • rustup target add wasm32-wasi && cargo build --release --target wasm32-wasi Krustlet
19. Why Azure • Krustlet is developed in the open, mostly by Microsoft FTEs • Azure is an early adopter for krustlet • We can add krustlet to Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) • Azure CLI extension is currently in preview • It brings support for WebAssembly Gateway Interface (WAGI) out of the box Krustlet
20. Krustlet integration with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) - Add krustlet to AKS - Inspect krustlet nodes in AKS Demo
21. What we will cover today • Introduction • What is krustlet and how can I get it • Running WebAssembly workloads in Kubernetes • Conclusion Talking Points
22. WebAssembly beyond the server in Action 🎉 - Running simple Wasm workloads in Kubernetes - Running WASI workloads in Kubernetes - Running WAGI workloads in AKS Demo
23. What we will cover today • Introduction • What is krustlet and how can I get it • Running WebAssembly workloads in Kubernetes • Conclusion Talking Points
24. • Running Wasm workloads in the cloud will allow better resource utilization • We don’t need to package applications in containers • Strickt sandboxing (WASI) will enahnce overall platform security and robustness • It’s still a bit early – especially in managed Kubernetes (where we’ve limited control) Conclusion
25. further questions?!?! Thorsten Hans @ThorstenHans Consultant Don’t be afraid. Shoot your question now in person, or later at thorsten.hans@thinktecture.com or @ThorstenHans thns.io/slides