OpenWhisk is a serverless cloud platform designed for deploying and executing stateless functions in response to API calls or events. It serves as a complete serverless stack, providing an API gateway for functions, a function-as-a-service runtime manager, and an event-driven workflow engine.
The platform distinguishes itself through a polyglot execution model that supports multiple language runtimes and allows for the creation of custom runtimes using Docker containers. It enables complex logic through function orchestration and composition, allowing multiple functions to be chained into sequential pipelines.
The system provides comprehensive automation and management capabilities, including a rules engine for event-to-action routing, periodic trigger scheduling, and namespace-based resource isolation. It handles high-volume traffic via an API gateway with throughput management and leverages Kubernetes for container orchestration and automatic scaling.
The platform can be installed on Kubernetes clusters using automated deployment playbooks and includes a simplified local server environment for development and testing.
