Today every business is running its operations with large databases using cloud computing. This is because on-premise databases are unable to handle the extreme data flow coming to servers. Hence, business entities are moving from storage and infra set up to enhancing efficiency and streamlines the agile work culture. Serverless architecture or serverless computing is a software design pattern or a way to build and run apps & services without managing infra. This pattern helps to eliminate the need for handling, scaling servers, and DBs.
The cloud service providers such as AWS provide the serverless architecture to run apps and services. Hence, users no longer need to scale, provision, and maintain servers for their apps, DBs, etc. AWS architecture is the best useful serverless cloud with great usability along with Google cloud, and MS.
Further, serverless architecture takes the virtual servers from different cloud servers like Amazon AWS to hold the software app. This is without having the physical server infra.
This is in brief about Serverless Architecture and now we will discuss the various benefits, limitations, etc of this structure.
Serverless Architecture benefits
In Serverless Architecture, apps are broken into separate functions so that they could invoke and scale separately. There are many benefits of a serverless architecture that would be discussed further. Moreover, the most popular advantages of serverless architecture include the following. Such as quality software development, cost-effective pricing, ready to market in a short span, etc. There are many useful benefits that help in developing and deploying software products smoother.
The following business benefits that a serverless structure provides:-
With this invent developers can focus more on developing designs and writing codes smoothly.
The business can become agile, gain enterprise-level innovation, prosperity, and also have a competitive edge over the business.
Also, the serverless executes business code as a function as there is no need to manage infra manually.
Moreover, it allows us to develop the best, elegant, smooth user experience by fulfilling customer demands.
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It provides the best cost-effective pricing model, with value for money. Thus, it helps to avoid unnecessarily invest in the internal architecture.
Also, it helps to deploy apps much faster and flexibly release the product. Further, the CLI allows the deployment of codes seamlessly in minutes.
A business user can easily scale his apps on-demand basis.
Moreover, the FaaS infra of this serverless allows developers to build independent, useful functions such as API calls.
Due to the modular-based, faster, and small releases the serverless architecture minimizes the time-to-market.
Also, a development team within an organization can improve and enhance its latency period using modern serverless functions.
Furthermore, the cloud service provider like AWS also provides the infrastructure security strongly. So, business users no need to worry about infra security anymore.
Thus, these are a few benefits of serverless architecture.
Why use Serverless Architecture?
The architecture is useful in many ways for business users. Through the use of this developers can focus more on the core products and services rather than worrying about the physical structure of the server. The cloud service providers are capable of handling the various complexities of computing, server management, etc. It also reduces the hosting costs and other overheads to host a software app on the internet and its maintenance. Moreover, the cloud virtual server service provider Amazon or Microsoft is capable of eliminating physical hardware concerns.
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The process of this architecture is divided into two different models.:-
FaaS - Function-as-a-Service
BaaS - Backend-as-a-Service
Let us understand what actually these are?
BaaS
Backend-as-a-Service allows developers to focus more on the frontend development of the apps. This makes them free from handling backend development jobs such as hosting, cloud storage, and DB management, etc. Also, this helps them to avoid writing codes for server-side activities like DBM, encryption, etc.
Moreover, developers can use the BaaS powered APIs and SDKs that minimize time-to-market and very cost-effective. There are some useful benefits of BaaS or Backend-as-a-Service which are as follows:-
Speed up the development process.
It also minimizes the time-to-market with cost-effective features.
Mainly focuses on core business.
It helps to focus more on high-value coding.
Also, it offers high performance and scalability to the apps.
It also provides backup and security features.
FaaS
FaaS or Function-as-a-Service also falls under the cloud computing services that execute small modules of code as per the event. Further, FaaS empowers users to compose the apps into separate autonomous functions. Here each of these functions is hosted by the FaaS service provider. Moreover, these independent functions also automatically scale.
This is a serverless backend service that enables developers to write modular code pieces on the fly. Also, this service results in very well such as cost-efficient, simplified processes with dynamic scaling of resources.
Moreover, there are a few benefits of FaaS or Function-as-a-Service.
This service helps in enhancing developer’s efficiency with faster development time.
It doesn’t manage any server physically.
Easy scaling horizontally and upscaling is managed by the platform itself.
Moreover, functions in this service are written in any coding language due to its language support.
Also, the charges are only up to usage whenever the services used.
When you should use Serverless Architecture?
Considering the benefits of Serverless Architecture, there are some applications of this approach that best suits it. The serverless offers the space for achieving future business goals such as scalability, high-performance, agile workspace, automation of resources, improved response time, etc. Also, it provides value for investment by reducing the operational overheads and other provisions of physical infra.
The major idea behind serverless is to minimize the time, complexity, and cost of running a reliable server for the latest app.
Also, it is mainly useful when there is a heavy application load moved to the client, unpredictable amount of server load. Moreover, the approach is fast-growing with changing apps to scale more and update features faster. This is also utilized for special services for different jobs. The serverless is useful when a user has a small number of functions. Even if you have a complex app structure, still this approach is useful but it needs to design very carefully.
Important things to know about Serverless Architecture
Other than the various attributes of Serverless architecture, there are some important points to know about this approach.
Cannot exclude the server
Users cannot think the app code running over serverless architecture doesn’t mean that the code is running without a server. The architects manage everything by taking care of software updates, security, hardware failure recovery, rebooting, etc solutions.
The barrier in using all languages
While using a serverless architecture the architects need to check which coding languages are compatible to use. This is because this approach doesn’t allow to use of all the languages. Moreover, it is generally in a talk that developers have the flexibility to use any language. But the serverless architects need to verify the languages that support cloud functions well. AWS serverless architecture may be greatly useful in this regard.
The important languages that support this approach are AWS, Google Cloud, MS Azure, JS, C#, Python, Java, etc. All these languages have different runtimes while some of them allow customizing runtimes. Thus, it is important for architects to check the compatibility of the language and runtime aspects. This has to check before they move app hosting to the cloud.
Set particular timeout
This means the serverless functions don’t operate for long-term tasks. They kill the running instance after a specific amount of time allowed to it. Thus, these architects should note this point from the development stage.
While this approach they have to check the data/file size to be ingested during production. Otherwise, they need to face the specified timeout hassles while working on a task.
Limited Resources
The serverless architecture functions applied are mainly carried out on nano-containers with limited resources. Hence, some app tasks need more memory usage than regular ones. This might impact the serverless architecture that can’t fulfill the resource need.
Thus, the architects working in a serverless environment must know the limits of the resources of this implementation. Through knowing these details a user can optimize the app code. And minimize the dependencies and smoothly configure them. Therefore, it helps in the resource utilization of serverless architecture with no difficulty.
Security aspects
The security aspect is the important thing that they must consider while working with serverless. Thus, an architect of this approach must know the security aspects like identity, accessibility, etc.
Moreover, the developers of serverless architecture are expected to add inputs and request validations. This is along with the elements for storage and recovery. Apart from the security of serverless functions, the architects should also focus on various other things. Such as regulatory compliances, policies, and executions, etc.
Pay as you consume
It is easier for the cloud service providers to provide the VPS on rent. But the major cons of this is that the user has to pay for services even if the services are at rest. For example, a business is active in different areas but the traffic doesn’t come to it during the night or peak hours. The charges for this have to pay by the user.
These architects have to know that this structure doesn’t charge when the executions don’t happen. So, as a user, you don’t have to pay a single penny when there is no traffic. But the bill might increase if the traffic load is high.
Different architectures are useful for various needs
The architects working on serverless architecture must know that switching on this structure will not solve the project-related issues. Therefore, the architects have to assess the various needs that require for a project and they should analyze them properly.
Furthermore, if the architects don’t know how to utilize this approach for their needs. Then it is difficult for them to adopt the latest technology changes. So, they must keep these things in mind while using this approach.
The scope of serverless is very vast and it becomes more popular in a short span due to its services.
Well designed app structure
The developers working on this approach should think over the app design. They should design the perfect app structure within the serverless computing environment need to implement. Therefore, they should consider all the major factors required for implementing the architecture within the frameworks. This is important to make the architecture feasible for the app.
Also, these frameworks from various cloud providers must include effective productivity, operations, cost control, security of apps, etc.
Thus, these are the few important things that an architect working on the serverless environment should consider. Further, the important use cases of the serverless are AWS Lambda, Google Cloud, MS Azure, etc. These large-scale companies provide worldwide support to their global customers and business users. Hence, it might impact the global business with this approach in a positive way.
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Serverless Architecture Limitations
We have seen the various benefits and features of this serverless approach but there are a few cons also.
The workloads running for a long time on this approach may be a costly affair that the dedicated servers.
While processing some cold-start requests it might get delayed which needs to send the requests regularly to stay active.
Moreover, developers may face hassles due to the increase in functions.
The user has to depend completely upon the service providers for debugging and the tool’s observation. This means they have limited access to structure usage.
Besides, this approach may impact the flexibility and customization of the systems. This is due to the control held with the cloud providers.
Hence, these are some of the important limitations of this approach.
Final Thoughts
You have gone through the various aspects of serverless architecture including its benefits and limitations. There are a few use cases also of this architecture. I hope you got the basic idea of using serverless and when to use this. This approach may help business entities in various ways and also save much cost and time. It also reduces the time to market for a product release. This learning may help you more if you think to go with AWS Online Training with OnlineITGuru. You can enhance your existing skills in this regard by interacting with industry experts of AWS in real-time.