Want to build websites and apps in a way that’s both easier and cheaper? Well, it’s possible even for major organizations and international companies. In this article, let’s take a look at how serverless architecture and computing is changing the game for software developers.
We’ll start at the very beginning and walk through how serverless works, how we got this far, and the pros & cons of this approach.
Normally, when you create a website or app, you have to set up a special computer called a server to run it. This computer needs to be big and powerful enough to handle all the visitors and users that might come to your site or app.
With serverless architecture, you don't need to worry about setting up and managing your own server. Instead, you can use a special service that takes care of everything for you. This third-party service service will:
So, before we get too technical, let’s imagine you wanted to build a lemonade stand. Normally, you would have to build the stand yourself, get all the materials and set it up. But with serverless architecture, you could just rent a pre-built lemonade stand and only pay for the time you use it. This makes it easier and cheaper for you to sell lemonade to your customers.
💻 🌆 Serverless architecture is the name of the computing paradigm that allows users to develop and run software applications without having to manage the underlying technology infrastructure. (A popular model is AWS Lambda.) In this model, third-party services and programmable functions handle activities such as:
These services include BaaS and FaaS.
In the backend as a service model, your developers focus on the frontend design and development, while the backend development process and maintenance is outsourced to a third party. The backend service functions include:
A common serverless foundation is adopted as the backend service. As a serverless design, the frontend application designed with serverless architecture principles can run on the backend service with a simple API integration.
These are backend functions that allow you to run your software code as ephemeral containers for any backend service — without any administrative input. The function triggers the necessary backend service or responds to an API call from the frontend application components. Each function is loosely coupled and independent.
This sounds similar to the BaaS model but only FaaS allows for efficient implementation of microservices.
Ever since the advent of networked computing in the early 1970s, the function of infrastructure operations and management was seen as a cost-center and administrative challenge. This was particularly true for organizations operating on limited financial and HR resources.
Fast enough, the computing requirements for all business organizations increased exponentially. That means that developers and ITOps teams now spent most of their time…
These efforts rarely contributed to innovation, product design and development — but they were necessary to keep the business running.
In recent years, amid the explosive growth of automation tools and cloud computing services, the concept of serverless computing has caught the attention of resource-bound IT teams. Previously stuck focusing their efforts on ITOps functions such as data center management, server provisioning and manual configurations, they’ve now come to embrace serverless architecture & computing.
Consider the growth and development of the serverless architecture and computing industry:
OK, now that we’ve got the basics and trends down, let’s get into the more technical details. These services are incorporated into software design as part of the following serverless architecture principles:
Serverless architecture design has useful applications when it comes to reducing the cost and complexity of ITOps tasks:
Furthermore, when the application code is decoupled from the backend infrastructure, you can expect higher fault tolerance as the infrastructure service providers can dynamically distribute application workloads to highly available redundant servers in the cloud.
Most vendors offer built-in integrations that further reduce the burden of reconfiguring and redesigning the frontend to meet the specifications of multiple ITOps management solutions.
This flexibility however comes at a cost:
Let’s understand some common challenges and issues with serverless, so you can get a better sense of when and how to use it.
Serverless systems suffer from Cold Start latency, which refers to a delay in performance of a function at its initial state. This can happen under several circumstances:
The delay is observed commonly in serverless functions for real-time applications such as chat and streaming, and its duration depends on function size and dependencies, runtime environment and cloud provider optimizations.
Here are a few ways you can reduce the cold start latency in Lambda:
Functions are stateless by design, meaning they don’t persist variables or in-memory state between calls. So, they can’t ‘remember’ state information between function invocations. This limits complex workflows such as multi-step processes and user sessions.
So how do you manage state across invocations? The following state management techniques can help:
Debugging in serverless environments is challenging due to the stateless, ephemeral, and dynamically scaling nature of functions. There’s no fixed infrastructure for traditional methods like SSH, as functions are short-lived and scale dynamically, making it difficult to trace individual requests passing through multiple hops. Therefore, traditional logging and monitoring tools fall short.
The solution here is robust observability. For typical observability tasks, you need logs, metrics and traces. This requires instrumentation of the application, which allows tools to collect all relevant information from the systems. For serverless applications, consider monitoring the following metrics:
Certainly, metrics provide valuable information for troubleshooting incidents, but incident management and application performance management also require context
Logs provide this context. Logs record and describe what happens to system resources during the lifetime of a serverless function. This information can allow you to analyze a variety of key performance traits of your serverless architecture:
To achieve this, you need a dedicated toolset that can produce trace pillars and describe serverless transactional logs, like Splunk Observability Cloud. This information is then aggregated and analyzed using a predictive analytics system for real-time, proactive and preventive incident management.
Say goodbye to blind spots, guesswork, and swivel-chair monitoring. With Splunk Observability Cloud and AI Assistant, correlate all your metrics, logs, and traces automatically and in one place.
One of the overlooked aspects of serverless architecture is its use case suitability. It is prone to latency issues, cost inefficiencies, and architectural complexity. Not every workload is a good fit for serverless functions, so should you invest in one?
The following use cases align naturally with the characteristics of a serverless system — short-lived, scalable, stateless, and event-driven:
Conversely, serverless functions are generally not well-suited for scenarios that struggle with timeout limits and cold starts, or require persistent state storage. These include:
In other scenarios that struggle with timeout limits and cold starts, and require persistent state storage such as:
Ultimately, serverless architecture offers a game-changing approach for building applications, promising easier development and reduced costs. However, truly harnessing its power means understanding its unique characteristics, navigating its challenges, and critically determining if it's the right fit for your specific workload. Making an informed decision will ensure you leverage serverless effectively, transforming your development process for the better.
See an error or have a suggestion? Please let us know by emailing splunkblogs@cisco.com.
This posting does not necessarily represent Splunk's position, strategies or opinion.
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