This post walks you through the steps to get started with Twilio on IBM’s Bluemix. Twilio comes as a service that you can add to your Mobile Cloud or Node.js app. Here’s a quick look at Twilio. Twilio, is a cloud communications IaaS organization which allows you use standard web languages to build voice, SMS and VOIP applications via a Web API.
Twilio provides the ability to build VOIP applications using APIs. Twilio itself resides in the cloud and is always available. It also provides SIP integration which means that it can be integrated with Soft switches. Twilio looks really interesting with its ability to combine the cloud, Web and VOIP, SMS and the like.
This post barely scratches the surface of Twilio & Blue mix. This article provides aa hands-on experience for integration of Twilio with Bluemix and is based on this Twilio blog post. It enables you to send a SMS to your mobile phone by typing in a URL.
As in my earlier post the steps are
1) Fire-up a Node.js Webstarter application from the Bluemix dashboard. In my case I have named the application websms. Once this is up and running
2) Click Add a Service and under ‘Web and Application’ choose Twilio.
3) Enter a name for the Twilio service. You will also need the Account SID and Authorization token
4) For this go to http://www.twilio.com and sign up
5) Once you have registered, go to your Dashboard for the Account SID and Auth Token. If the Auth token is encrypted, you can click the ‘lock’ symbol to display the Auth token in plain text.
6) Enter the Accout SID and Auth Token in the Twilio service in Bluemix
7) To get started you can simply fork my Twilio websms code from devops.
8) Now clone the code into a folder you create as follows
git clone https://hub.jazz.net/git/tvganesh/websms
9) You will need to modify the following files
package.json
manifest.yml
app.js
10) You can create package.json by running
npm init. Make sure you enter the name of the application you created in Bluemix. In my case it is “websms’ For the rest of the options you can choose the default. Here is the package.json file
"name": "websms",
"version": "0.0.0",
"description": "This README.md file is displayed on your project page. You should edit this \r file to describe your project, including instructions for building and \r running the project, pointers to the license under which you are making the \r project available, and anything else you think would be useful for others to\r know.",
"main": "app.js",
"dependencies": {
"gopher": "^0.0.7",
"express": "^3.12.0",
"twilio": "^1.6.0",
"ejs": "^1.0.0"
},
"devDependencies": {},
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
},
"repository": {
"type": "git",
"url": "https://hub.jazz.net/git/tvganesh/websms"
},
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
11) In the manifest.yml make sure you enter the name of your application and the host
applications:
- host: websms
disk: 1024M
name: websms
command: node app.js
path: .
domain: <your domain>
mem: 128M
instances: 1
12) Lastly make changes to your app.js.
// dependencies
var app = require('gopher'),
twilio = require('twilio');
var config = JSON.parse(process.env.VCAP_SERVICES);
var twilioSid, twilioToken;
config['user-provided'].forEach(function(service) {
if (service.name == 'Twilio') {
twilioSid = service.credentials.accountSID;
twilioToken = service.credentials.authToken;
}
});
// URL test
app.get('/', function(request, response) {
var client = new twilio.RestClient(twilioSid, twilioToken);
client.sendMessage({
to:'<Your mobile number>',
from:'<Number from Twilio dashboard',
body:'Twilio notification through Bluemix!'
}, function(err, message) {
response.send('Message sent! ID: '+message.sid);
});
});
13) After you have made the changes you will need to push the changes to Bluemix using the command line based ‘cf’ tool
14) Login into cf with
cf login – a http://api.ng.bluemix.net
15) Push the websms onto bluemix
16) In the folder where you websms files reside entr the following command
cf push websms -p . -m 512M
17) This should push the code to Bluemix.
Note: If you happen to get a
Server error, status code: 400, error code: 170001, message: Staging error: cannot get instances since staging failed
then you need to make sure to check the changes made to files app.js, package.,json or the manigfest,yml.
18) If all things went smoothly, go to your Bluemix dashboard and click the link adjacent to the Routes. You should see that an SMS has been sent as shown
19) Your mobile should now display the message that was sent as shown below
20) Check the analytics in your Twilio dashboard
Disclaimer: This article represents the author’s viewpoint only and doesn’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions
Giga thoughts ... 