What is Serverless Architecture?
In a nutshell, it gives you the ability to run code without having to think about servers. All you need to run everything are cloud services and your computer.
For instance, take AWS Lambda, a cloud service that lets you to execute your own code in response to events. Because it runs on a highly available compute infrastructure and handles all resources, OS maintenance, capacity provisioning, scaling, and so forth, you simply need to provide the code.
In short, this type of architecture means:
- No explicit servers to run applications.
- No deployment to servers.
- No need to install software.
- You only need to upload your code and let the service handle the rest.
What Does Serverless Architecture Look Like?
For comparison’s sake, here’s what a traditional architecture may look like:
This, on the other hand, is an example of serverless architecture on AWS:
You’ll notice the distinct lack of servers in this type of organization, as your backend in the cloud handles most of the heavy work. This leaves you free to develop your product or grow your business.
User Benefits
- Fast Deployment – You don’t have to deal with slowdowns due to server issues.
- Event-Driven – Functions activate via user-defined triggers.
- Problem Isolation – API errors easy to track and do not shut down back-end.
- Simple – No hardware to manage. Develop your backend, upload the code, and run it.
- Metrics – The system Feeds metrics and logs to CloudWatch.
All this sounds well and good, but how does all this apply to businesses in particular?
- Reduced deployment efforts – The cloud handles server capacity, deployments, software updates, metrics, and logs .
- Reduced Cost – In AWS, for example, you pay only for the 100’s of milliseconds of compute capacity your application uses.
- Flexible Triggers – File uploads, user clicks, SMS, and automated tasks can be used to trigger functions.
Possible Applications
Aside from the obvious benefits of highly-available mobile applications, we are looking at several possible uses for this kind of design:
- You may host a cost-efficient, half-static, half-dynamic website that can generate static pages in a matter of seconds.
- You can build dashboards that dynamically display real-time data, e.g. poll results.
- You can host back-end logic for mobile apps on AWS Lambda, minimizing the amount of code on the apps themselves.
- You can use SMS, SES, or even voice-driven triggers for a variety of functions, such as updating databases.
- You can also build high-performance serverless Video on Demand (VoD) services that scale according to user demand.
As this architecture continues to evolve, and there will be more ways that it can be useful. You can use Lambda to build mobile back ends, perhaps design web, IoT, and voice-enabled apps, and use it in combination with AWS and third-party services.
As always, if you want to apply cloud-based serverless architecture to your company’s data center, please contact our consultants at PolarSeven today.
