Serverless Architecture: A Thorough Guide

January 24, 2021

Amar Pandey

Software Engineer @ Radiansys

Introduction

Serverless architecture has emerged as the new aid for organizations looking for better ways to manage their expanding technological ecosystems. Software architects no longer need to be platform management experts but only do what they must. Serverless has come to redefine the ways cloud applications are built, integrated, and consumed ultimately. This is substantiated by reports forecasting a growth of around 20.8% for the serverless market in 2020-2026.

As it grips organizations of various sizes, serverless is still a concept in shades for many. Is serverless really serverless? Is it safe to adopt? What good it is for? With so many more questions and concerns revolving around it, there prevails considerable confusion in the market about serverless architecture. We are here to dissolve the misnomers and draw a clearer picture of this succeeding technology so that you can reap the best benefits of it.

Understanding the term

“Serverless architecture is a technology that lets you build the more important blocks of your application without worrying about the infrastructural base.”

Essentially, Serverless Architecture can be understood as an archetypal software design approach that conceptualizes an event-driven workflow. It involves third-party services hosting applications that eliminate the need for developer-side infrastructure management. The developers get free from server management responsibilities including execution, debugging, monitoring, and maintenance. Here, the domain providers become responsible for server provisioning and allocation.

Serverless architecture has also become an implementation prototype for cloud computing. It is an innovatively new thought process of creating wholesome cloud-led native software and applications. It has also marked an onsetting departure from communication-led architecture.

Importance of serverless architecture

Any software or application utilizes some sort of host server to go live on the internet. This comes with the requirement of managing the server alongside the OS and additional web server processes. It is a resource and time-consuming task that cannot be skipped. Developers often use cloud services to ease physical hardware management but it still doesn't solve the problem of OS and web server process management.

This is where serverless architecture comes to the rescue. Serverless services single-handedly manage all the infrastructure management concerns including OS, hardware, and a web server. They handle all the related intricacies of resource allocation, server management, computing, etc. Finally, developers are only left with one concern, their code!

Notably thus, serverless is not actually serverless. It only denotes the transfer of server management from software creators to service providers or vendors.

Software architecture in modern times is taking new shapes and dimensions. The general trend shows the path narrowing down and the elements getting smaller. Serverless architecture is the freshest outcome of this shifting trend. The serverless concept is booming, in close connection with the boom of cloud technology. There are tech giants like Amazon, Google, IBM, and Microsoft that have rolled out serverless platforms like AWS Lambda and Azure Functions. These platforms host the local business processes of client companies for easier workflow management and software development.

Basic concepts

Mastering serverless in the first place requires some extra effort due to the steep learning curve. Thus, let us give you a rundown of certain fundamental concepts involved (though cloud providers may use different terminology).

Invocation: execution of a single function.
Concurrency limit: the maximum number of functions that can operate in a single region at once, configured by the service provider.
Duration: execution time of any serverless function.
Cold start: latency caused by the initiation of any new function or an inactive function.
Timeout: the total run-time set by the cloud provider for any function before termination.

Benefits of adopting serverless

Advocates of serverless are winning as there are plenty of benefits that come with the adoption of this software design approach:

Lets app makers put more attention on code writing and app design optimization by offloading infrastructure management.
Reduces internal server management costs and often DevOps investment via a pay-as-you-go model.
Breaks down applications into smaller units, improving observability, error isolation, and modification.
Decreases time-to-market through faster, smaller, and more modular releases.
Minimizes blast radius of failures since the architecture is event-based.
Allows apps to scale automatically with user demand and usage patterns.
Makes it easier to push quick updates and roll out new versions in smaller increments.
Helps teams embrace remote, cloud-native work models and iterate faster.

Limitations of serverless architecture

The serverless concept is still in the phase of evolution, so there are a few tradeoffs:

Third-party dependency leads to a partial loss of control over architecture, availability, and customization.
Vendor lock-in can make it difficult to switch providers once you are deeply integrated.
Long-running workloads can become more expensive than dedicated servers.
Cold starts introduce latency and require careful mitigation.
Multi-tenant environments introduce security considerations that must be managed.
Integration testing across many small functions can be more complex.

When serverless is a good fit

You want to build light apps that are easily scalable and flexible.
You want to launch an app in record time.
Your app requires frequent updates or expansion.
Your app has inconsistent usage or is on-demand.
Your app involves discrete functions with short runtimes.
You want to reduce latency by running code closer to users.

On the other hand, serverless might not be ideal for high-throughput, always-on workloads or large legacy migrations where tighter control and predictability are more important.

Before you adopt serverless architecture

Consider the following:

The level of control you want over your infrastructure and runtime.
The pricing model and budget constraints you have.
Requirements around SLAs, uptime, compliance, and availability.
How your teams will collaborate across development, operations, and security in a serverless environment.

Popular applications of serverless architecture

Serverless powers a wide variety of use cases, from short-lived functions to comprehensive user-centered applications:

Trigger-based tasks like user sign-ups, log-ins, and notifications.
Asynchronous background tasks that shouldn't block the main app flow.
CI/CD automation by wiring functions into deployment pipelines.
Security checks such as vulnerability scanning, configuration validation, and authentication workflows.
Creating highly scalable REST APIs and event-driven backends.

The mindset that serverless requires

Serverless is as much a mindset as it is a technology. It pushes teams toward small, loosely coupled modules, automated operations, and cloud-native design. Rather than thinking in terms of servers, you think in terms of events, functions, and managed services.

The result is a more experimental, innovation-friendly environment where teams can ship faster, test ideas quickly, and pay only for what actually runs.

AWS Lambda – pioneer of the serverless world

The serverless model was put into top gear by AWS Lambda. FaaS (Function as a Service) is one of the most popular examples of the serverless model and is expected to be adopted by over half of global enterprises by 2025. It involves sets of distinct functions associated with specific tasks that run when triggered. Developers only need to write the application code and the provider handles the rest.

Starting in 2014, AWS Lambda introduced the world to the modern serverless model and triggered many other leaders to enter the FaaS market. This championing cloud business model leases virtual machines or containers (with resources) to customers for the required time. Lambda is now used across a huge range of use cases, from full applications to single short-running tasks.

A Datadog report shows that Lambda functions were invoked about 3.5 times more in 2021 than they were in 2019, pushing AWS to further optimize performance and latency.

Some of the reasons Lambda remains so popular:

Pay-per-use billing is extremely cost-effective for spiky or unpredictable workloads.
Automatic scaling creates functions as needed and charges only for their runtime.
A wide variety of use cases including scheduled jobs, batch processing, real-time notifications, chatbots, image processing, and more.
Reduced operational burden as AWS manages the underlying compute, upgrades, and security.
Tight integration with other AWS services (API Gateway, S3, DynamoDB, etc.) for building full applications.
Enterprise-grade support via the broader AWS support ecosystem.

Conclusion

Serverless architecture has a shining way ahead and adopting it can make your business more future-ready. It is absolutely worth the investment for organizations that value scalability, automatic resource allocation, faster response times, lower operational overhead, and agile delivery.

At the same time, serverless isn't a silver bullet. The best results come when you align it with your architecture, workloads, security posture, and team skills.

Thanks for reading!