What is serverless computing?

Serverless Computing is a new concept in the IT field that allows creating and running applications without the requirement to configure the server side. Indeed, it’s an ultra-efficient way to use cloud resources much beneficially than ever. One of the prons of the innovative approach is that it allows programmers to save time and efforts on creating excellent products with high reliability and scalability.

Please don’t take the term literally: the development requires hardware as it still functions on servers. The name derives from the fact that users of such platform don’t have to deal with setting up servers to run the code. All server settings and scheduling of resources are hidden from users and controlled by the platform. A user who owns the system is not obliged to purchase, rent or put servers or virtual machines into operation to run the server code on them.

It’s an innovative approach to deploying and writing more flexible modern applications with lower total cost. The point is that programmers can focus on the core product and devote more time to writing code.

They don’t have to worry about server management and maintenance both in the cloud and in the local environment. Therefore, it significantly saves the client’s money as the amount of programmer’s work is reduced.

A lot of world known enterprises like iRobot, Coca-Cola, and Thomson Reuters are already taking advantage of fresh cloud technology. They chose it to help run code in response to a series of predetermined events. It helps them manage their server without the threat of overhead, which is essential for large business working worldwide.

Programmers can finally forget about struggling with servers. Developers are responsible only for creating and running high-quality products. There are some well-known examples of service providers responsible for server stuff:

This development was the first common platform offering serverless technologies. The program runs code in a high-performance computing environment and handles administrative support for all resources. You are only required to provide the program code.

This platform is a constantly expanding set of cloud services provided to help companies solve business problems.

Another standout example provides fast and reliable performance of functions in a fully managed environment where developers can forget about managing any servers or providing infrastructure.

• No need to allocate servers or maintain them. Developers can finally dive into programming and create a standout product.
• Payment occurs only for the time when your app works. If your application is idle, you don’t have to pay like in the cloud computing model, because it doesn’t use resources.
• Your app is automatically scaled. With each trigger, a code will work in parallel with it. Therefore, workload and saving time in the process are reduced.
• Excellent flexibility. Fast scaling from zero to thousands of parallel functions is guaranteed.
• It allows working with several architectures, including nano-services.
• Multi-language support. Choose the most convenient one for you.

• It is often difficult to change the platform or switch providers without making changes in apps. The connection with your provider is way too strong.
• Monitoring and debugging is also complicated.
• Profound programming skills are required. It is quite a new field in IT, so there are often not enough experienced developers working with this concept.
• Security troubles. Multiple functions are run on the same platform. Thus, when downloading malicious code, there may be negative consequences for the operation of other applications.

All things considered, this is an architecture in which the software implementation is fully administered by a provider. It contradicts the traditional method of developing apps and using them on servers.

Of course, innovative technology has its pros and cons but the IT world seems very interested in the new serverless concept. Anyway, according to the specialists, this field will significantly grow in two years, radically changing software development.