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The Myths and Misconceptions About Serverless
And why you should consider going serverless
The demand for serverless computing solutions is growing. But before we go any further, let’s try to explain what this relatively new phenomenon is. The name serverless is pretty contradictory. No, serverless doesn’t mean that there’s no server involved. There has to be a server somewhere, of course. How else would we be able to do any computing?
So what is serverless? This is what Wikipedia says:
“Serverless computing is a cloud-computing execution model in which the cloud provider runs the server, and dynamically manages the allocation of machine resources.”
The description that I like the most comes from Gojko Adzic. He says that serverless is serverless in the way that WiFi is wireless. Because even with WiFi, there are still a lot of cables involved. Once you connect wirelessly to a network, you don’t think about all the cables that connect routers, etc.
The same thing goes for serverless. Even though there are still servers running your code, you don’t have to think about those servers.
Why Serverless?
There are several reasons why you should consider going serverless.
Scalable
Imagine a situation where a post office could somehow magically add and decommission delivery trucks at will. Around Valentine's Day, when the mail spikes, the post office could increase the number of delivery trucks. On the other hand, the number of delivery trucks could be decreased for times when fewer deliveries are necessary. That’s essentially what serverless applications are able to do.
As a developer, you don’t have to think about scaling when you’re going serverless since it happens automatically.
No need to manage servers
With serverless, there’s no need to worry about how to patch a server for the latest security update or other maintenance tasks that need to be done.
