Two distinct approaches have emerged in cloud computing: serverless computing and server-based computing. Serverless computing represents a significant departure from traditional approaches and offers exciting possibilities for innovation, operational streamlining, and cost reduction. But what exactly is it, and how does it differ from the established server-based model?
Serverless computing introduces an approach where you, the developer, only care about the code you need to run, not the infrastructure around it. This narrowing of the approach simplifies operational management and reduces expenses by shifting server management tasks to other areas. As a concept, it is similar to business process outsourcing (BPO) or facility management outsourcing. You focus on the areas where you have intellectual property or can generate value, and let someone else handle the non-core processes that extract value.
In contrast, server computing is how most organizations have consumed the cloud, where you are responsible for managing and monitoring the servers while also providing you with the most control and customization options.
Providing IT professionals and developers with knowledge about these approaches and their inherent drawbacks is critical to designing an effective cloud strategy. Their experience and understanding are critical to choosing the right approach for your business.
Director of Cloud Computing Technology and Strategy at Akamai in the UK.
Definition of server and serverless cloud computing
Server-based computing, or traditional server-based computing, involves a hands-on approach to deploying applications. In this model, you are responsible for managing the servers that run your applications, including provisioning servers, updating operating systems, scaling resources to meet demand, controlling access, and ensuring high availability and fault tolerance.
This approach provides greater control over your IT infrastructure. You can customize almost every aspect of your environment to suit your application. For example, you can implement additional security or software controls, tune the kernel for maximum performance, or use specific operating systems needed to support aspects of your application stack—all of which are not easy to achieve in a serverless environment.
On the other hand, serverless computing removes most of the complexity of managing cloud computing infrastructure by abstracting it away. With this abstraction, you avoid directly managing cloud servers and instead outsource back-end computing on an “as-a-service” model. There are still servers, but you no longer need to worry about them; the provider makes sure they are available, patched, supported, and secure.
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Serverless computing and event-driven computing are often used interchangeably, but while they overlap, there are some crucial differences.
Serverless computing can be used to implement event-driven architectures, as it can automatically scale to handle a variable number of events and only charges for the actual execution time. For example, a serverless function can be triggered by an event such as an HTTP request or a message in a queue.
Not all event-driven architectures are serverless, and not all serverless functions are event-driven. Event-driven systems can also be built using traditional server-based infrastructure, and serverless functions can perform scheduled tasks or be invoked directly by an API rather than being event-driven.
Identify which type is right for your business and application
There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and you may find that you use both options even within a single application. In an HR system, storing employee records in a server-based database is convenient for supporting complex or long-running queries, such as payroll processing. However, ad hoc, multi-stage time-off requests are well suited for a serverless application.
Serverless computing offers two main advantages: simplicity and a performance-based cost model. By adopting serverless computing, businesses can manage their infrastructure more easily, as the cloud provider handles server provisioning, scaling, and maintenance. This approach allows developers to focus on writing and deploying applications without the burden of managing the underlying servers.
Serverless computing also improves efficiency and resource utilization, as businesses only incur costs for the computing power used and when it is used. Business leaders can plan more easily because they know that each transaction costs 𝑥 and we expect 𝑦, so our bill this month will be 𝓏.
When used on open standards platforms—for example, NATS.io instead of a Hyperscaler streaming data solution—this transaction-based model can significantly reduce expenses and unlock new opportunities for innovation, freeing developers and managers to focus on building high-quality applications instead of dealing with infrastructure complexities.
On the other hand, server computing provides businesses with greater control and customization of their infrastructure. By managing your servers, you can tailor your environment to meet specific needs and ensure high performance, reliability, and security. This approach is beneficial for applications that require consistent, long-term resource allocation, as it allows for tuning and optimization that serverless models may not offer.
Additionally, server-based computing allows for direct monitoring of the hardware and software stack, allowing for fine-grained control and troubleshooting. This hands-on control can be crucial for businesses with strict regulatory requirements or those that need to handle sensitive data securely.
Why flexibility remains the biggest challenge
While serverless computing offers attractive advantages, it also presents challenges that businesses must deal with. On a smaller scale, serverless computing is a very efficient way to consume cloud computing services. When demand starts to increase, it can quickly become expensive, especially if platform dependency is a factor. Think of it like taking a taxi versus buying a car. A taxi ride once a week is a cheap way to get home from the office, but taking a taxi to and from the office every day, to and from your kids’ school to drop them off or pick them up, and to go to the shops on the weekends to buy groceries will quickly become outrageously expensive compared to buying a car.
To mitigate these risks, companies should establish a culture of cost control, open standards, and vendor evaluation. Choosing vendors with low or no exit fees can help control expenses, and using open standards ensures application portability. This avoids the risk of building technical debt by relying excessively on a single vendor’s proprietary services or APIs. This will hamper flexibility and increase migration complexities down the road, potentially resulting in significant refactoring costs.
Balancing the benefits of serverless computing with these challenges requires careful planning and strategic decision-making to ensure long-term success in the cloud environment.
Balancing the Pros and Cons and the Future of Cloud Computing
The decision here is how to manage the trade-offs inherent in serverless and serverless computing: control versus consumption, open standards versus proprietary, fixed costs versus dynamic cost base. Looking ahead to the next six months and beyond, serverless and serverless computing are poised to continue to evolve in response to changing business needs.
While serverless computing offers simplicity and cost-effectiveness, it remains limited by factors such as speed and latency, just like other cloud-based services. However, many vendors have built distributed and edge platforms that offer more sophisticated serverless offerings, bringing computing power closer to end users, mitigating latency issues, and improving overall performance.
In contrast, server computing will remain relevant, particularly for applications that require greater control over infrastructure, higher performance, or specific regulatory or security requirements. There will always be a place for both server and serverless cloud computing. As cloud technology continues to mature, we may see advancements in server computing that improve automation, scalability, and resource optimization, further increasing its appeal in certain use cases.
Ultimately, the future of cloud computing lies in striking the right balance between serverless and server-based approaches, leveraging the strengths of each to optimize performance, efficiency, security, and agility in an increasingly digital world.
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