Serverless
Ulf Schneider, November 2023
A server must always be on. Therefore we see the sticker saying "This machine is a server. DO NOT POWER IT DOWN!!" It is a way of protecting the server.
In serverless are many servers, but they belong to someone else
The term serverless describes the developer experience
With serverless, developers will
- not recognize servers,
- they will not manage them,
- and they will not interact with them in any way1
Serverless can be seen as a current last step of the virtualization evolution
The virtualization evolution1
Hardware servers
↓
Virtual machines
↓
Containers
↓
Serverless
Let´s examine the traits of each evolutionary step
Hardware servers
Hardware servers
have to be located somewhere (think of cabling, cooling, power-supply, and physical protection)
Hardware servers
have to be installed with software from the ground up
Hardware servers
have to be replaced by new hardware when they become too old
Hardware servers
have to be administered
Virtual machines
Virtual machines
decouple from the underlying hardware and operating system
Virtual machines
can be prepared once and installed multiple times on different hardware servers
Virtual machines
can be applied multiple times to a single hardware server
Virtual machines
have to be administered
Containers
Containers
can do what virtual machines can do
Containers
are more lightweight (cpu, storage) than virtual machines
Containers
can be distributed more easily than virtual machines
Containers
startup much faster than virtual machines
Containers
have to be administered
Serverless
Serverless
abstracts away any notion of servers and infrastructure
Serverless
does not require any kind of administration (or minimal)
Serverless
relies on a cloud provider offering the service (IBM, Google, Microsoft, Amazon)
Serverless
is payed by usage
Serverless
scales up and down automatically
Serverless
is reliable and fast around the globe
Serverless
puts the business logic into focus
Serverless covers
functions
storage
authentication
monitoring
alerting
Thank you
Serverless Ulf Schneider, November 2023