Knative Functions Installation and Walkthrough

Kubernetes automates the deployment and management of your containerized applications. In other words, you deploy your app into a cluster and Kubernetes maintains it for you. But here's where it gets tricky. You need to tell Kubernetes how to handle your application once it's been deployed. There are numerous options and configurations to consider, but the growing trend is towards simpler, web-based applications with APIs that receive web traffic. So if you're in this majority group, Knative may be the tool for you. Knative is designed for common deployment patterns for Kubernetes and it can dramatically reduce application maintenance. With the Knative format, your applications can easily take advantage of these streamlined capabilities. Today, systems like this often require a series of separate systems to deploy applications in a Kubernetes cluster. But, with Knative, all these tasks are combined into a single, simpler system. This streamlining can bring greater cohesion to your teams and can make deploying applications much simpler. There are a few key reasons why Knative might be a good fit for your workflow. Google created both Knative and Kubernetes, but designed Knative to address some challenges of using Kubernetes, making Knative more user-friendly. Knative offers a variety of handy features, such as automatic scaling and 'Scale-to-Zero' functionality. When your app isn't needed, it shuts down, conserving resources and restarting only when a request arrives. Knative simplifies the process of deploying applications by eliminating the need to worry about YAML files in cluster build. It also offers an eventing framework allowing you to plug different event buses into your cluster. Installing Knative into your current Kubernetes cluster is quite easy. Run a few kubectl commands, confirm that you have all your CLI installed, and just like that, Knative is up and running. However, keep in mind that you still need Kubernetes. Knative only simplifies and improves the deployment process of your applications. What if you could just write code, click a button and your app is live? This is where Knative Functions comes in. This tool lets you write code and then deploy it into your cluster without tackling YAML files, configurations or build systems. To do this, you create your functions with the function CLI command, assign it a name and just start writing. You can then use kubectl to install Knative into your existing cluster, targeting specific YAML files. After deployment you can use PubNub events and actions for greater control. With your PubNub account, go to "Events and Actions" and create an event listener. This will notify your infrastructure when a new message arrives and trigger it to send a webhook endpoint to your actions. The ease of use, simplicity and ability to handle most common use-cases makes Knative a fantastic tool for managing your Kubernetes clusters and deploying applications. The fewer steps you have to take, the more your team can focus on what they do best: crafting great code. Whether you're a big team or a small operation, Knative can make your Kubernetes deployment process a lot smoother.