This exercise shows you how to create public HTTP endpoints from actions. You will learn how to create web actions and use the integrated API gateway.
Once you have completed this exercise, you will have…
- Understood how IBM Cloud Functions can expose HTTP endpoints.
- Created numerous example Web Actions
- Enabled API Gateway integration including authentication and rate-limiting.
Once this exercise is finished, you will be able to creating scalable HTTP APIs using IBM Cloud Functions!
Serverless applications are a great solution for building public API endpoints. Developers are now building "serverless web applications" by hosting their static files on a CDN and then using serverless platforms for their APIs.
OpenWhisk has a comprehensive RESTful API for the platform that allows you to invoke actions using authenticated HTTP requests. However, if you want to build APIs for public web sites or mobile applications, the authentication credentials will need embedding in client-side files. This is a terrible idea for obvious reasons…. but don't panic!
OpenWhisk has a solution for creating public APIs to invoke your actions without exposing credentials. 😎
Let's review some concepts which explain how this feature works in Apache OpenWhisk.