Serverless Architecture Using AWS
What Is Serverless Architecture?
In short, it is a cloud service model where the developer focuses solely on building business logic rather than on the infrastructure on which it will run. As already mentioned, physical servers do exist. The point is that when building a serverless solution, there is no need to hire a highly specialized DevOps engineer to configure machines, set up networks, or update operating systems. This leads to significant cost savings, as DevOps are currently among the highest-paid specialists on the market.
All responsibility for server management is shifted to serverless service providers, among which the 'big three' are Amazon, Microsoft, and Google. At the same time, serverless architecture is a different approach to software development. Application developers combine various services (building blocks) available in the public cloud. Thus, the code written by developers runs using exactly the amount of resources needed to support it.
When a predefined event occurs, the serverless platform executes a task. Thus, developers or platform owners do not need to predict how many times a function or event will be used—they simply pay a minimal fee for each core execution.
This approach enables highly scalable solutions with improved application performance at optimized costs.
In simpler terms, it is generally a cheaper solution.
The entire system relies on cloud providers, and two models can be distinguished:
- BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service) allows programmers to focus on the frontend side of their projects and not bother with tasks such as database management, cloud data storage, or hosting. Using BaaS services significantly reduces development costs and time-to-market, as developers do not need to work on back-end code, for example, for databases.
- FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) is an event-driven model where small code modules are executed and paid for. When certain events occur in the application, a particular function is triggered, such as opening a specific window in the app or a user submitting a form. The cloud vendor (e.g., Amazon Web Services, IBM OpenWhisk, or Google Cloud Platform) executes these events on their servers and charges the application owners for each event that occurs. The main advantages of this approach are excellent scalability and cost efficiency.
When to Use Serverless Architecture?
Serverless architecture is an excellent solution for online business needs. It allows rapid scaling, faster and cheaper software development, and improved performance. This is great news for business-oriented IT professionals, as all resources saved on back-end development can be invested in further growth.
Incorporating serverless architecture into your business can benefit your goals, especially if you are planning to create an application:
- that have unpredictable or rapidly changing development or scaling needs
- that are based on multimedia requiring complex data processing
- that use IoT technology
About Amazon Web Services (AWS)
AWS is the largest and most popular public cloud in the world. It currently includes over 160 services from a vast range. Examples include computing power, data storage systems, artificial intelligence, blockchain, the Internet of Things, augmented reality, and even the Amazon Ground Station service for satellites.
What made AWS so famous? Amazon lists several possible reasons:
- The widest offering
- The highest security
- The largest community of users and partners
- The fastest pace of innovation
- The largest community that has already tested their solutions
Six Reasons to Switch to Serverless Architecture
Although serverless architecture is not a magic solution for every organization's problems, it offers a number of significant advantages.
Significant Increase in Time-to-Market
Let's clarify right away: less time spent on development, deployment, and other operations means that users will be able to use your application much sooner. FaaS functions are much simpler and faster to deploy than entire dedicated servers.
Reduction in Application Operational Costs
When choosing a serverless approach, you outsource part of the development and maintenance to a third-party provider. Then, for a fee, they manage the servers and databases of thousands of companies with whom you share servers, equipment, etc. This solution, based on the principle of the 'sharing economy,' proves to be much cheaper and more efficient when it comes to the time your developers need to support the application. Moreover, you only pay for what is used.
Reduction in Development Costs
The BaaS serverless approach involves sharing entire application components with other companies that use exactly the same logic in their products. There is no need to spend time and money reinventing the wheel. Serverless allows you to use ready-made back-end mechanisms that have been polished to perfection by many developers and battle-tested.
Reduction in Scaling Costs
The FaaS (Function-as-a-Service) model allows applications to automatically scale, growing with the customer base. This process is fully handled by the provider, and importantly, you can start small and then let server costs grow proportionally to your business development. After all, you only pay for the capacity you need at any given moment.
Simpler Operations Management
With no internal infrastructure (the provider handles it all), you don't even have to think about infrastructure maintenance tasks that would keep you up at night. Neither software updates, security, nor system administration are your problems anymore.
More Efficient Capacity Management
With the old approach, you had to make decisions about what capacity you might need over a period of time, based at best on your team's forecasts. Unfortunately, this often leads to underestimation or overestimation. The former causes problems for users and possible server downtime. The latter means not using all the capacity you are paying for. In both cases, you lose money. Fortunately, with serverless architecture, these problems do not arise.
Best Serverless Alternatives to Amazon Web Services
Despite the fact that AWS is the king of serverless solutions, there are many other alternatives. Let's look at a few of the most commonly used.
Google Cloud Platform
Google Cloud's serverless solution allows developers to build applications using containers, simplifying the development process. Google Cloud Platform is ideal for applications using Big Data, advanced analytics, and machine learning. One of its most significant advantages is fast response time.
Microsoft Azure Serverless
Azure holds a strong market position, especially when it comes to enterprise customers, most of whom use Windows and Microsoft software. Therefore, when entering the cloud market, Microsoft simply took its old on-premises software, such as Windows Server, Office, SharePoint, .NET, and others, and moved it to the cloud.
Qinling
Qinling is a FaaS for OpenStack. The main goal of the project was to create a platform that supports serverless functions (like AWS Lambda), storage solutions for function packages (local, Swift, or S3), and container management platforms (e.g., Kubernetes).
Serverless Frameworks
Anyone entering the world of serverless architecture should learn about serverless frameworks. Building serverless platforms requires a tool for development and deployment, which is what serverless frameworks are for. There are several frameworks for building serverless applications: Apex, Gordon, or ClaudiaJS for Javascript; Sparta for Golang; or the most versatile Serverless Framework, which works well on Javascript, Golang, and Python.
Users praise Serverless for its ease of learning and rapid development, which is reflected in the numbers—over 36.6 thousand stars on GitHub and 15 million downloads at the time of writing (and that number continues to grow!).
Is the Future Serverless?
According to a survey conducted by O'Reilly among 1,500 programmers, 40% of them had encountered serverless architecture in their companies.
In 2023, as shown by a DataDog study, more than 50% of AWS users already use the AWS Lambda FaaS function.
The global forecast for 2024 shows that:
The FaaS market size will grow by 32.7%.
And these numbers should not shock anyone.
We are all surrounded by software every day, and the market is becoming more competitive than ever. Therefore, software developers, investors, venture capitalists, and even business owners need solutions that allow them to accelerate and reduce the cost of releasing application iterations.
Serverless architecture appears to be the ideal solution to this problem, as the active community constantly tests, builds, and improves existing solutions, as well as creates new ones.