Revamping the Application Landscape: Optimum Situations for Serverless Architecture Implementation and Advantages to Reap

Serverless architecture, a topic that has been prevalent in the software development industry, has been steadily growing in popularity since its inception in late 2014. With five years in the market, this approach has matured and has a promising future ahead.

The purpose of this article is to explore the definition of serverless architecture, the advantages it provides to businesses, and the situations where it is most effective.

Understanding serverless architecture

The concept of serverless architecture encompasses two interconnected areas, namely backend as a service and functions as a service.

Backend as a service

Backend as a service refers to applications that heavily or entirely utilize third-party cloud-hosted applications and services to manage server-side logic and state. Such applications, typically classified as “rich client” applications, include single-page web apps and mobile apps. These applications depend on the broad range of cloud-accessible databases such as Firebase and Parse, and authentication services like AWS Cognito and Auth0. These services were previously referred to as “(Mobile) Backend as a Service” (BaaS).

Function as a service

Functions as a service, on the other hand, refers to applications where the server-side logic is developed by the application developer, but instead of the traditional architecture, it runs on stateless compute containers that are event-triggered and entirely managed by a third party. This can be thought of as “Functions as a Service” (FaaS). Presently, AWS Lambda is one of the most popular implementations of a Functions-as-a-Service platform, but other options are available.

Benefits of Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture offers a variety of benefits for businesses, including:

1. Reduced Costs: Since serverless architecture requires no upfront investment in hardware or infrastructure, businesses can save on costs and only pay for the resources they use.
2. Increased Scalability: Serverless architecture is highly scalable and can automatically scale up or down based on demand.
3. Improved Efficiency: By delegating the responsibility of managing servers and infrastructure to third-party providers, businesses can focus on their core competencies and improve efficiency.
4. Greater Flexibility: Serverless architecture allows businesses to easily add new features and services without worrying about infrastructure requirements.

When to Use Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture is a suitable option for a variety of use cases. However, it may not be the best choice for every situation. Businesses should consider using serverless architecture when:

1. They have variable and unpredictable workloads.
2. They want to reduce operational overhead and focus on their core competencies.
3. They want to achieve greater flexibility and scalability.
4. They need to build new applications or services quickly and easily.

Market Share and Popularity of Serverless Architecture

In 2017, the global serverless architecture market size had a valuation of 3.14 billion USD, according to Grand View Research. However, the growth of serverless is expected to continue.

Serverless Architecture: An Overview

Serverless architecture provides organizations with the opportunity to focus on their services, enabling them to enhance their processes with greater agility and reduce costs associated with development, testing, and deployment time.

The Main Idea Behind Serverless Architecture

Although it is called “ServerLESS,” it still necessitates computing power that exists on hardware. The term “less” implies a reduced amount of effort required by developers to publish, maintain, and scale application servers. The primary concept of serverless is to reduce the time, complexity, and ultimately the cost of running a reliable and scalable server for modern applications. The concept of FaaS enables developers to express application logic as a set of functions run independently, only when needed.

Advantages of Serverless Architecture

Benefits for Developers

One benefit of serverless architecture for developers is that there is no need to run a server 24/7. Serverless recognizes that traditional servers usually use only 5–15% of their computing power, enabling users to run code only when required. This allows FaaS providers to charge only for the time that a function runs. Additionally, scaling is straightforward and automatic. If a lot of requests are coming in, more functions can be run.

Another benefit of serverless architecture is that there is no need to figure out all the infrastructure pitfalls. Since the building blocks of serverless applications are simple functions, there is no need to navigate the complexities of infrastructure. One simply writes the code and ships it. However, it is important to keep in mind that communication between teams is crucial to prevent conflicts.

Finally, the modularity of serverless architecture enables developers or teams to more easily take charge of particular features and launch them without being restricted by the need to deploy the entire server. This approach enables developers to focus on their core products.

Benefits for Businesses

Serverless architecture offers several economic advantages for both startups and enterprises. Here are some benefits that businesses can reap from using a Serverless FaaS approach:

1. Lower Costs of Running a Server Using AWS Lambda, businesses can reduce their hosting costs as they are only charged when an application is actively processing events. The idle time of an application is free, leading to a reduction in the costs of running a server.
2. Utilizing Specialized Services for Different Tasks By writing pieces of an application as separate independent pieces of logic, businesses can use specialized services to perform different tasks, leading to an overall economic effect. For instance, using AWS Cognito to authorize client requests can shift the authorization cost from paying once per session to once for each monthly active user.
3. Client Access to Backend Resources With Serverless architecture, it is acceptable to allow client applications to directly access backend resources. For example, end-user devices can connect directly to a separate database endpoint for posting analytics. The FaaS platform’s distributed request-level authorization requirements help to simplify the system and reduce its complexity and costs of operation.

In conclusion, the Serverless FaaS approach offers economic benefits such as lower server costs, specialized services utilization, and direct client access to backend resources, making it an attractive option for businesses.

Serverless architecture is an approach that offers certain benefits for different kinds of applications. The following are the types of applications that suit this approach the most:

1. Applications with high latency background tasks such as multimedia or data processing.

2. Client-heavy applications where most of the logic can be transferred to the client-side.

3. Applications that have an unpredictable amount of server load.

4. Fast-growing and rapidly changing applications that require rapid scaling and feature changes.

However, like any technology, serverless architecture has its drawbacks. Here are the main cases when it’s better not to use it:

1. Entirely serverless applications are unsuitable for real-time applications that use WebSockets because FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) functions have a limited lifetime.

2. Functions that have been idle for some time will need to go through a cold start, which can take a few seconds. Therefore, if a quick response is needed from the server, either the functions should be invoked manually to keep them warm or a Serverless-only approach should be avoided.

3. Different FaaS providers may have particularities in using their services, which can make switching to another provider difficult. There are solutions such as serverless frameworks that are provider-agnostic, but they inevitably compromise on the full range of features offered by a particular provider in favor of greater generality.

Some of the drawbacks of serverless architecture can be mitigated by a hybrid approach — using a relatively small server that will handle non-stop activity, while outsourcing time and process-consuming tasks to serverless.

To summarize, the serverless approach benefits both developers and product owners. Developers can free their minds from infrastructure concerns and focus on the core product, while product owners can spend less on running a server, have better service scalability, faster time-to-market, and the potential to scale. In the upcoming article, we will delve into how we use the serverless approach at Apiko and provide real-life examples. Stay tuned!

Originally published at https://apiko.com on March 6, 2019.