Learn about Code Engine

IBM Cloud® Code Engine (or "Code Engine") was developed by IBM with the goal of helping you create modern, source-centric, containerized, and serverless apps and jobs. The platform is designed to address the needs of developers who just want their code to run. Code Engine abstracts the operational burden of building, deploying, and managing workloads in Kubernetes so that developers can focus on what matters most to them: the source code.

Benefits of Code Engine

Review the capabilities that Code Engine provides to run your workloads.

Code Engine benefits
Capability	Description
Runs your workloads	Code Engine runs your HTTP-driven applications and your run-to-completion batch jobs.
Fully managed service	Code Engine takes care of all the cluster management, including provisioning, configuring, scaling, and managing servers so you do not need to worry about the underlying infrastructure.
Builds your code	Code Engine pulls your source code and creates the container image for you. Code Engine supports both Dockerfile and Cloud Native Buildpack.
Private workloads	Store your source code in private repositories and push your images to private registries and Code Engine can access them.
Fully integrated	Code Engine is fully integrated into IBM Cloud so that you can take advantage of the full catalog of IBM Cloud services.
Event-driven workloads	Extend the functionality of your applications with messages (events) from event producers. Your application can then react to those events and perform actions based on them.
Autoscales - even to zero	Code Engine automatically scales your workloads up and down, and even down to zero when no requests are active. You pay for only the resources that you consume.
Control access	Assign platform and services access permissions to your projects in IBM Cloud Identity and Access Management to control who can provision and manage resources in your IBM Cloud account.
Based on open source	Code Engine is built on a set of open source technologies such as Kubernetes, Knative, Istio, and Tekton, keeping your apps and jobs portable.
DDoS protection	Code Engine provides immediate DDoS protection for your application. Code Engine's DDoS protection is provided by Cloud Internet Services (CIS) at no additional cost to you. DDoS protection covers System Interconnection (OSI) Layer 3 and Layer 4 (TCP/IP) protocol attacks, but not Layer 7 (HTTP) attacks. See DDoS protection.

Code Engine terminology

Learn the basics about Code Engine by reviewing the following key terms. Afterward, you can test your knowledge and take a quiz!

Code Engine Terms
Term	Description
Application	An application, or app, runs your code to serve HTTP requests. In addition to traditional HTTP requests, IBM Cloud® Code Engine also supports applications that use WebSockets as their communications protocol. The number of running instances of an app are automatically scaled up or down (to zero) based on incoming requests and your configuration settings. An app contains one or more revisions. A revision represents an immutable version of the configuration properties of the app. Each update of an app configuration property creates a new revision of the app.
Build	A build, or image build, is a mechanism that you can use to create a container image from your source code. Code Engine supports building from a Dockerfile and Cloud Native Buildpacks.
Code bundle	A code bundle is a collection of files that represents your function code. This code bundle is injected into the runtime container. Your code bundle is created by Code Engine and is stored in container registry or inline with the function. A code bundle is not a Open Container Initiative (OCI) standard container image.
Code repository	A code repository, such as GitHub or GitLab, stores source code. With Code Engine, you can add access to a private code repository and then reference that repository from your build.
Configmap	A configmap provides a method to include non-sensitive data information to your deployment. By referencing values from your configmap as environment variables, you can decouple specific information from your deployment and keep your app, job, or function portable. A configmap contains information in key-value pairs.
Container image registry	A container registry, or registry, is a service that stores container images. For example, IBM Cloud Container Registry and Docker Hub are container registries. A container registry can be public or private. A container registry that is public does not require credentials to access. In contrast, accessing a private registry does require credentials.
Function	A function is a stateless code snippet that performs tasks as it is invoked by HTTP requests. With IBM Code Engine functions, you can run your business logic in a scalable and serverless way. IBM Code Engine functions provide an optimized runtime environment to support low latency and rapid scale-out scenarios. Your function code can be written in a managed runtime that includes specific Node.js or Python versions.
Job	A job runs one or more instances of your executable code in parallel. Unlike applications, which handle HTTP requests, jobs are designed to run one time and exit. When you create a job, you can specify workload configuration information that is used each time that the job is run.
Project	A project is a grouping of Code Engine entities such as applications, jobs, and builds. A project is based on a Kubernetes namespace. The name of your project must be unique within your IBM Cloud® resource group, user account, and region. Projects are used to manage resources and provide access to its entities. A project provides the following items. Provides a unique namespace for entity names. Manages access to project resources (inbound access). Manages access to backing services, registries, and repositories (outbound access). Has an automatically generated certificate for Transport Layer Service (TLS).
Secret	A secret provides a method to include sensitive configuration information, such as passwords or SSH keys, to your deployment. By referencing values from your secret, you can decouple sensitive information from your deployment to keep your app, function, or job portable. Anyone who is authorized to your project can also view your secrets; be sure that you know that the secret information can be shared with those users. Secrets contain information in key-value pairs.
Service binding	Service bindings provide applications, jobs, and functions access to IBM Cloud services.
Subscription	A subscription provides a way of signing up to receive events from a particular event producer. For more information about the different types of event producers and how to subscribe to them, see Subscribing to event producers.