Cloud Computing and Serverless Architecture

Cloud computing has become increasingly popular in recent years as organizations look for flexible and cost-effective ways to store, manage and process data outside of on-premises data centers. One promising technology that has emerged is serverless architecture, which removes the need for businesses to manage servers by allowing code to run dynamically without provisioning or managing servers.

This article will provide an overview of cloud computing and serverless architecture. It will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of moving to the cloud and going serverless. Examples will also be given of how companies are using serverless functions today.

What is Cloud Computing?

Cloud computing refers to on-demand access to a shared pool of computing resources like servers, storage, networking, databases and software that can be accessed over the internet. With cloud computing, businesses can avoid upfront investment in hardware, software, data centers, and personnel. Instead, they pay only for the computing resources they consume.

The main types of cloud computing models are infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). IaaS allows organizations to run virtual servers and storage. PaaS handles servers, operating systems and storage, while allowing businesses to focus on developing applications without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying hardware and software. SaaS provides applications via a web browser without any downloads or installations required.

Benefits of Cloud Computing

• Lower upfront infrastructure costs — Companies don’t have to purchase servers, data storage, networking equipment or software licenses. Everything needed is available on an as-needed basis through the cloud.
• Flexible scaling — Infrastructure can be rapidly and elastically provisioned, either manually or automatically, to scale up and down depending on usage requirements. Resources can be added or removed as quickly as needed.
• Increased access and mobility — Data and applications are accessed via the internet from any device. Users aren’t tied to one physical location.
• Improved Disaster Recovery — Multiple, often geographically dispersed, data centers provide redundancy and prevent outages from one location failing.
• Faster deployment — New applications and services can be provisioned almost immediately without lengthy procurement processes.
• Automatic software updates — Maintenance, updates and patches are handled by the cloud provider seamlessly without involving users.

Drawbacks of Cloud Computing

• Loss of direct control — Since infrastructure is outsourced, businesses don’t have full control over deployment, management, configuration and security of the systems. They are reliant on the provider.
• Vendor lock-in — It can be difficult to switch cloud providers or bring workloads back in-house due to data conversion and integration challenges. This gives existing providers leverage.
• Network latency — For latency-sensitive or real-time apps, network latency may be unacceptable depending on where application servers and end users are located relative to cloud data centers.
• Security concerns — While major providers have strong security, sharing servers or a platform with other tenants raises exposure levels compared to dedicated on-premises systems. Responsibility is also shared.
• Unpredictable costs — Without careful budgeting and governance, cloud spend can spiral out of control. Consumption-based pricing may also surprise some organizations used to fixed hardware and licensing costs.

What is Serverless Architecture?

Serverless architecture takes cloud computing principles a step further by allowing developers to build and run applications and services without having to manage servers. The “serverless” label is a bit misleading as servers are still involved — but developers don’t provision, scale or manage them.

With serverless, the cloud provider handles everything at the server-level including server provisioning, capacity planning, installation of updates/patches. Code simply runs in ephemeral containers that are managed, scaled and triggered automatically, only using resources when required and with no idle costs.

Common serverless offerings include Function as a Service (FaaS) like AWS Lambda or Azure Functions, which let developers upload individual functions or microservices that integrate events and actions. Backend as a Service (BaaS) manages common database, login and file storage services.

Benefits of Serverless Architecture

• Even lower costs and better scalability — Pay only for the compute time functions use, nothing for idle infrastructure. Functions can scale instantly to millions of requests without capacity planning.
• No servers to manage — Developers are freed up from server administration and DevOps responsibilities to focus on code.
• Flexible and reactive applications — Event-driven functions power highly responsive apps able to react to a myriad of triggers.
• Fast development cycles — Iterate quickly without deployments. Pinpoint functions for testing instead of whole apps/services.

Use Cases for Serverless

• IoT backends — Processing data from millions of internet-connected devices in real-time.
• HTTP APIs — Building RESTful APIs without provisioning API gateways or RESTful servers.
• Machine learning — Running prediction models on highly scalable, on-demand computation.
• Website backend tasks — Offloading processing jobs like image resizing, form handling from frontend servers.
• Mobile apps — Acting as backends for data processing, synchronization and other workloads.

Cloud computing and serverless architectures provide compelling options for businesses looking to reduce infrastructure costs and manage increasing demands for scalability, flexibility and mobility. With careful planning around governance, security and cloud optimization, they can fuel digital transformation and power innovative new applications and services. As these technologies continue to mature and third-party services multiply, their adoption will likely only accelerate in the coming years.