Go-powered Open Source Project Flogo for Lightweight IoT and Edge Integration: The Internet of Things (IoT) brings up 50 billion devices until 2020, which have to be connected somehow. Challenges include low bandwidth, high latency, non-reliable connectivity and the need for low network costs. Therefore, a gateway at the edge is needed remotely on site of the devices to filter, aggregate and send just relevant data into the cloud or data center. This session introduces open source project Flogo, which allows developing ultra-lightweight IoT edge applications with a zero-coding web user interface. Coders can also rely just on Go code if they want. It is written in Go programming language and therefore 20-50x more lightweight than similar Java or JavaScript frameworks. The session focuses on live demos and shows how to develop ultra-lightweight microservices and how to integrate IoT devices using standards such as MQTT, WebSockets, CoaP or REST. The last part of the session compares Project Flogo to other open source IoT projects like Eclipse Kura or Node-RED and cloud offerings such as AWS IoT. Check out www.flogo.io and https://community.tibco.com/products/project-flogo for more information and community.

1. Kai Wähner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn
@KaiWaehner
www.kai-waehner.de
November 2016
Open Source Project Flogo
for Integration of the Internet of Things
and Ultra-Lightweight Microservices

2. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
• an ultra-lightweight integration framework powered by Golang
• open source and easily extendable
• used to develop IoT edge apps or cloud-native / serverless microservices
• complementary to other integration solutions and IoT cloud platforms
Key Takeaways
Flogo is …

3. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

4. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

5. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Internet of Things (IoT)
… refers to the ever-growing network of physical
objects that feature an IP address for internet
connectivity, and the communication that occurs
between these objects and other Internet-enabled
devices and systems.

6. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Integration Key for Success of IoT Projects
Without Integration
there is no
Internet of Things!
Gartner
Market Guide for IoT Integration
“Through 2018, half the cost of
implementing IoT solutions will be
spent on integration. “
Strategic Planning Assumption,
Benoit J. Lheureux, Massimo Pezzini, Alfonso Velosa
!

7. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Processes Analytics
APIs Streams & Events
Interconnect Everything
Devices
Equipment
CORE
Run the Business
EDGE
Change the Business
People

8. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Hybrid Integration Platform (HIP)
Application
Integration
Application
Integration
(on a PaaS)
iPaaS
Integration
Platform as a Service
iSaaS
Integration
Software as a Service
Cloud-Ready Cloud-Native
API
Management
On Premise
Public Cloud
Public Cloud Public Cloud
On Premise
Public Cloud
Process
Integration
Business Process
Management Platform
Streaming
Analytics
Fog Computing
Edge Devices
Edge
Integration
Analysts are sure:
HIP is “the new default”
in most enterprises!

9. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Why Project Flogo?

10. Much lighter to run not only in the cloud but also on devices
50X lighter than Java Dropwizard
20X lighter than IBM Node-Red

11. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

12. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Open Source since October 2016…
http://www.flogo.io

13. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
What is it?

14. Project Flogo IoT Example

15. Flogo Concepts to the End User
Trigger
Flow
Activity
Error Handler
Flogo App
One or more Flows
Flows
Activities + Transitions +
Optional error handler
Triggers
Starts those flows

16. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Live Demo
Flogo in Action à Overview

17. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

18. Build Cloud-Native, Lightweight Microservices
• Public Cloud
• Containers on PaaS
• Serverless Architectures
© Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Use Cases for Flogo
IoT Edge Apps
• Consumer
• Industrial IoT

19. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Examples of IoT Edge Microservices

20. Typical IoT Integration Scenario
What’s wrong with
Cloud-only IoT Integration?
• Connectivity is unreliable
• Non-trivial latency in hops
• Networks costs add up quickly

21. A better IoT Integration Blueprint
• Local control = more reliable
• Less traffic = LowerTCO
• Edge integration & event processing

22. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

23. How do you build edge apps today?
Java
• Heavy (>200MB)
• Not agile
• Robust
• Licensing risk
NodeJS
• Lighter (~70MB)
• Agile
• Not IoT robust
• Clear licensing
C/C++
• Lightest
• Not Agile
• Robust
• Clear licensing

24. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Why Go?
Modern programming language
Getting a lot of traction due to usage in frameworks like Docker or Kubernetes
Concurrency
Built into the language (Goroutines, channels, no explicit thread programming)
Memory management
Modern Garbage collector
Statically typed
Type-safe development with no “surprises” during runtime
“Partly” object-oriented
Simple and flexible type system, composition instead of inheritance
Zero-dependency programming model
All-included binary file, no dependent “external” libraries
Speed
Ultra fast compilation and startup time, very lightweight footprint

25. So what is the Difference?
Hardware
OS
VM - JVM
Framework - OSGi
App
Eclipse Kura
Hardware
OS
VM – V8
Framework – Node.js
App
Node-RED
Hardware
OS
App
Flogo
Typically 100s of
dependencies –
100MB+ “All included” zero-
dependency model
enabled by to
Golang

26. Comparison – Resource Requirements of IoT Frameworks
Eclipse Kura Node-RED Flogo
VM JVM V8 Golang
Base Disk Space 59 MB 56 MB ~ 0 MB
Base Runtime Memory ~ 170 MB (with Open JDK)
~ 20 MB (with Oracle Embedded Java)
> 50 MB ~ 5 MB
Startup time Slow (~8 sec) Slow (~5 sec) Fast (~1 sec)
Application Build Slow Not Applicable Fast (~2 secs)

27. Flogo Repositories on Github
flogo-lib
Core libraries.
flogo-services
Backing services required by Flogo for flow
and state management.
flogo-contrib
Flogo extensions available out of the box, like
triggers or activities.
flogo-cli
A command line tool to build Flogo apps.
https://github.com/TIBCOSoftware/flogo
(very permissive open source BSD license)
Web Designer coming very soon – free to download and use!

28. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Live Demo
Flogo in Action à Source Code

29. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

30. Flogo Architecture
Trigger(s) Action
ActivityActivity
Activity
Flow
Your
custom
Go code
github.com/TIBCOSoftware/
flogo-lib/core/action
Custom Action
App
Flow
Service
State
Service

31. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
• Wire together hardware devices, APIs and online services
• Integrate and orchestrate stateless devices and microservices
• Transform / Filter / Route / Aggregate / Enrich
• Error handling, Re-Try, Re-Routing, Wait, Resume, etc.
• State Management via State Service and Flow Service
• Device activiation and diagnostics, performance management, ...
• Recover from faults, continue where a device crashed, …
• Not just a dataflow pipeline
• Synchronous and asynchronous communication
Flogo is a Process Engine

32. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
• Open source framework (permissive BSD license)
• Ultra-light footprint (powered by Go) for edge devices (disk and memory)
• Zero dependency model
• Can be run on a variety of platforms (edge devices, on premise, cloud, container)
• Deployable on small computers or directly on (even very small) devices
• Connectivity to IoT technologies (MQTT, CoaP, REST, …)
• Highly optimized for unreliable IoT environments
• For developers / integration specialists / citizen integrators
• Web UI for visual coding, testing, debugging
• Extendable SDKs / APIs
• Some innovating features and attributes
• Step-back debugger
• Remote Operations and Analysis
• Etc.
Characteristics

33. Web-Native Step-Back Debugger
• Step back in a flow
• Interactively design/debug
your process
• Simulate sensor events
• Change data or configuration
and run from Trigger or any
Activity
• Underlying technology could
be used to support remote
ops debugging of failed flows

34. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Live Demo
Flogo in Action à Features

35. Outlook: Flogo Nanoservices on Microcontrollers
Flogo nanoservices that target
microcontrollers like ARM M0
Offload I/O centric compute
farther off to the edge.

36. Outlook: Conversational User Experience with Design Bots
Conversational
Design Experience
Flow-based
User Interface
…coming
in 2017.

37. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
1) IoT Edge Applications
2) Overview about Flogo
3) Use Cases
4) Go-powered Source Code
5) Architecture and Features
6) IoT Reference Architectures
Agenda

38. Intel IoT Reference Architecture
Potential Flogo use cases
• Event-driven flows & rules
• Device Lifecycle Mgmt
• User Experience
Core Integration
Agile Microservices
API Management

39. Amazon IoT Reference Architecture
Potential Flogo use cases
• Event-driven Flows
• Device Lifecycle Mgmt
• Orchestration
Core Integration
Agile Microservices
API Management

40. Google IoT Reference Architecture

41. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
Serverless Architecture with IBM’s OpenWhisk (Open Source)
https://apiguy.tokyo/2016/03/01/openwhisk-a-world-first-in-open-serverless-architecture/
Flogo
Edge
App
Flogo
Edge
GateWay
Ultra-
Lightweight
Serverless
Flogo App

42. © Copyright 2000-2016 TIBCO Software Inc.
• an ultra-lightweight integration framework powered by Golang
• open source and easily extendable
• used to develop IoT edge apps or cloud-native / serverless microservices
• complementary to other integration solutions and IoT cloud platforms
Key Takeaways
Flogo is …

43. Questions? Please contact me!
Kai Wähner
Technology Evangelist
kontakt@kai-waehner.de
@KaiWaehner
www.kai-waehner.de
LinkedIn