Why Severless Computing is popular? Pros and cons of going serverless

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Serverless computing, also known as Function as a Service (FaaS), is a cloud computing model in which the cloud provider manages the infrastructure and automatically allocates computing resources as needed to execute and scale applications or functions.

Serverless computing is typically billed on a per-execution basis, which means that users only pay for the actual amount of resources consumed by their code during each function execution. This makes serverless computing a cost-effective option for running small, intermittent, or low-traffic workloads.

Some examples of serverless computing services include AWS Lambda, Azure Functions, and Google Cloud Functions. These services support a wide range of programming languages and integrations with other cloud services, making it easy for developers to build and deploy serverless applications or functions.

Why use serverless computing?

Serverless computing offers a number of advantages over traditional cloud-based or server-centric infrastructure. With serverless computing, developers only need to focus on writing the code for the specific task or function they want to execute, without worrying about the underlying infrastructure, scaling, or availability. The cloud provider automatically takes care of resource allocation, load balancing, security, and other operational tasks.

Pros of serverless computing?

1. Cost-effectiveness: As a pay-as-you-go paradigm, serverless computing only charges users for the resources they actually utilize to execute each function. As users do not have to pay for unused resources, it is cost-effective for light and irregular workloads.
2. Scalability: Serverless computing scales up or down autonomously to meet application or function demand. This makes scalability simple and eliminates the need for infrastructure management on the part of consumers.
3. Reduced operational overhead: As the cloud provider is in charge of managing the infrastructure and administrative responsibilities, developers are free to concentrate entirely on writing code for the application or function.
4. Faster time-to-market:  Serverless computing enables programmers to create and deploy apps or features fast without having to worry about infrastructure management or scaling.
5. Increased availability and fault tolerance: Serverless computing architectures are made to be highly available and fault-tolerant, so the application or function will still be available even if one instance fails.
6. Easy integration with other cloud services: Serverless computing services typically provide easy integration with other cloud services, making it easy to build and deploy complex applications.

Cons of serverless computing?

1. Cold start latency: The cloud provider might have to spin up a new instance when a function is called for the first time or following a period of inactivity, delaying execution. This is referred to as "cold start latency" because it might affect how well an application or function works.
2. Limited control over infrastructure: Infrastructure with restricted control is subject to serverless computing's limited level of control. This may make it challenging to apply some tweaks or optimizations.
3. Vendor lock-in: The risk of vendor lock-in exists since serverless computing depends on the cloud provider to handle the infrastructure. It can be challenging to switch providers and may demand a lot of time and money.
4. Debugging and testing: Debugging and testing serverless apps might be problematic since they are executed in a distributed context. Developers may need to employ specific tools and approaches to find and diagnose faults.
5. Performance restrictions: Because serverless computing may be more expensive or slower than conventional cloud computing models, it may not be appropriate for high-performance or compute-intensive tasks.
6. Complicated pricing models: Because serverless computing pricing models are based on the number of resources utilized during the execution of each function, they can be intricate and challenging to anticipate. This may make it challenging to anticipate prices and result in unforeseen fees.

Onecompute Engineering team can help you to evaluate the business requirements and choose whether Serverless computing if that fits your needs. Although it has disadvantages, Our team can make it possible to run application code in a serverless architecture as close to the end user as possible by minimizing latency.