The Characteristics of Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture, launched in 2014, is a relatively new cloud computing execution model that’s been making waves in the IT world. The term refers to implementing a system or application that does not rely on centralized, dedicated servers. Despite this lack of centralized servers, serverless computing is still highly functional and can perform complex tasks such as those found in large-scale web applications.

The idea is to move the responsibility for operations and management of servers to the cloud provider. Then, all you have to do is upload your code and let your provider, whether it be Oracle Funtions, AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, or any other service provider, handle everything else. You also never need to worry about scaling or paying for unused resources. 

According to a recent O'Reilly poll, 40 percent of businesses have implemented serverless architecture. This architecture is becoming more popular with companies and new startups because of its low entry cost and scalability. In this article, we will first define serverless architecture, then explore some characteristics of it.

Introduction to Serverless Architecture

Serverless architecture is a method of developing and deploying applications and services without the need to maintain server instances. Your application is still running on servers, but your provider manages them all. As a result, you won't need to provision, scale, and maintain servers to operate your applications, databases, and storage systems.

The primary benefit is that your developers may concentrate their efforts on product development. Using a serverless architecture allows your developers to focus on their core product rather than maintaining and administering servers or runtimes in the cloud or on-premises. In addition, components like network configuration and physical server security are handled by the vendor rather than your team. 

Because of the reduced overhead, developers may regain time to focus on and build excellent solutions that scale and are dependable. However, serverless architecture has several other characteristics, some advantageous and some disadvantageous depending on your needs. 

We will discuss five characteristics of serverless architecture in detail below. 

1: It’s Hostless

The main benefit of serverless architecture is that it does not require any hosting or servers. With that being said, there is obviously a lot less server maintenance. There is no need to continually upgrade, troubleshoot, or monitor your infrastructure, nor patch your server, as is required for traditional server-based systems.

However, this also means you won't be able to use standard server hosting data like Requests per Second (RPS), Peak Response Times (PRT), Average Response Times (ART), or error rates as these metrics are reported by the cloud provider. That will not be part of your work in serverless architecture since you are not working directly with the server. Therefore you will need to monitor different types of metrics, but you will also need to learn new ways to implement effective performance optimization of your server architecture.

2: It’s Stateless

One of the choices given by serverless architecture to developers is Functions as a Service (FaaS), which provides a platform for users to build, execute, and administer applications without managing a server.

Because Functions as a Service is ephermal, you cannot keep anything in memory because your code containers are only used once and then deleted. This means that any data will be wiped. As a result, statelessness is a characteristic of a serverless architecture

3: It Has Elasticity

Because it is both serverless and stateless, most serverless architectures have a broad range of elasticity. This is advantageous in terms of scalability. Unlike traditional server administration, where developers must manually scale resources, serverless architecture does it automatically.

This type of architecture also eliminates many common resource allocation difficulties, which is a significant advantage. Elasticity can help you save money on operating expenses by only charging you for what you utilize in specific scenarios.

It may be essential to integrate your serverless architecture with outdated systems that can not handle its high elasticity, which might cause downstream system failures. Therefore you'll need to brainstorm some ideas on coping with such circumstances if you choose to go with a serverless architecture.

4: It is Inherently Distributed

Distributed means splitting a project or business into sub-services and allocating them to different computers or servers. Because serverless computing is stateless, all data must be kept on the Backend as a Service (BaaS) platform, which means that this sort of architecture is inherently distributed.

Elasticity is an advantage of distributed systems. Having a distributed architecture also means having a single region of high availability. A high-availability system is one that is designed to minimize service interruptions by avoiding or controlling failures and eliminating scheduled downtime. Serverless architecture can use other availability zones that are still up even if one of them is failing in your cloud vendor's region.

Choosing architecture involves a compromise; being available reduces consistency. In the cloud, serverless services have their own consistency models. When deciding which BaaS platform to employ, consider their consistency model's behavior.

5: It is Event-driven

Serverless architectures are designed to execute some tasks, receive some data, and then react to it and create another event. Each function only runs when prompted by a particular event. This means that each process of your program will only run when triggered. 

Serverless architecture is event-driven due to the use of BaaS. Because you have no control over the code of third-party services, this is an excellent method for them to enable extensibility, which means their features can be easily expanded upon. One of the primary benefits of event-driven design is that it reduces interdependence between components, which reduces coupling. 

The downside of using an event-driven architecture is that you may lose sight of the bigger picture. This can make troubleshooting the system more complex and it something to keep in mind about serverless architecture. 

Conclusion

Serverless architecture has become the talk of the industry. It's still in its early days, but with more experience comes the ability to spot patterns and build better architecture. In the end, the patterns and experiences help us optimize the overall system. 

By being more knowledgeable about the features of serverless architecture and the advantages and drawbacks that come with them, you can make more educated decisions regarding the architecture that will best suit your company's needs.