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If you’ve heard of the term “serverless architecture” but you have no idea what it means, don’t feel bad. This buzzword (buzz-phrase?) has been on the rise for the past few years, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop. More and more cloud companies are trying to promote serverless architectures for businesses. So you’re here wondering “why though”? No problem, in this article we’ll take you through 10 amazing benefits of serverless.
There are plenty of benefits to using a serverless architecture for your business. If you’re ready to take the plunge, dive into why a serverless architecture could work for you.
“Serverless” technology has two different definitive camps, each that describes their application architecture.
The first is Back-End as a Service or BaaS. This applies to any application that features most of its backend on the cloud. This is usually monitored or maintained by a third-party. You’ll usually find applications that are front-end heavy to exist on serverless architectures. This can include mobile apps or web applications that feature rich and complex UI.
On the other end of the stick, there is Function as a Service or FaaS. FaaS features an application that runs parts of their code through event triggers. Serverless architecture allows apps to evoke functions on demand. This is useful as it provides flexibility for server-side applications.
Now that we’ve broken down the use cases of serverless architecture, let’s dive deeper. Here are 9 benefits to using a serverless architecture for your project.
A serverless approach for your application could be perfect. If you need to spin up an app fast, serverless might be your solution. Instead of weeks and months to deploy an app, you can do it within hours and days. The reason behind this is that you don’t have to concern yourself with infrastructure. You can focus on the code and release it immediately. Scalability is automatic and you don’t have to worry about any provisioning needs.
Going serverless is a great way of cutting costs. That’s because you’re outsourcing the responsibilities of managing servers, databases, and some logic. Besides the actual cost, serverless takes less computing power and human resources. There’s no reason why you need to build a server from the ground-up on your own. Since serverless takes care of the infrastructure, you can focus on the server-side code that matters. There are situations where the cost isn’t that much cheaper, but it’ll depend on your use case.
If your application caters to customers, remember this: customers don’t care about infrastructure. They don’t get to see all the code that you’ve written for your back-end. The only thing they’ll notice is the front-end code. The user interface and experience are more important to them. So why not focus on allocating resources to elements that keep customers happy?
If you’re aiming to be the next Google, you need to consider whether your server can handle a load like that. Going with a serverless architecture allows you to roll with the punches. If your app succeeds and grows, it’ll be easy to stage changes that accommodate the growth. If not, then no harm done! There’s no need to provide infrastructure without knowing whether it’s needed for sure. That’s a huge benefit.
Serverless Best Practices handbook
Serverless architectures usually have access points on a global scale. That means that it’ll be easier to handle users from every corner of the world. This way, you can scale without affecting the performance of your application. As an example, imagine that you host a server the traditional way on the West Coast. If a user from the East Coast uses your app, they’d have to send a request the entire distance and back. For a serverless architecture, it would only go as far as the closest serverless node, which might be on the West Coast! The only potential downside is cold starts, which is the ramp-up time for an app to build and to be placed in a container.
Companies that host data centers or their own servers need to run their servers at all times. Think about all the huge data centers and the physical resources needed to build these centers. Think about the energy needed to keep them running. The good thing about serverless architecture is that you can buy servers on demand when you need it. This can reduce the resources needed to keep various companies online.
It’s easier to begin the implementation of an app with serverless than it is with traditional methods. Because of that, going serverless means you can innovate faster as well. When you can see tangible results return immediately, you can move on to the next project. You can start building your next feature or your next microservice. The serverless architecture provides this benefit when you’re not bound by constraints. It’s also easier to pivot in situations where you need to restructure.
This will depend on the company in question. Serverless architecture can potentially lead to happier customers. A company that can draw up new servers and ship features faster means that customers can access these new features. Nobody wants to wait an entire year for small fixes. Through serverless, you don’t have to worry about infrastructure. You can release logic and features quickly that will improve the user experience.
A serverless architecture means that you pay per request. If you had a traditional server, you’d keep it running at all times. With a serverless architecture, you’re only charged when the server’s used. That means there is less waste generated as well. It’s also more efficient because you no longer have to worry about scaling. Infrastructure, setup, capacity planning, and DevOps are no longer your concern.
Look, I’m going to level with you. I could only think of 9 awesome benefits of serverless technology but I just couldn’t let this article be: “9 benefits of serverless”, it didn’t sound right to me. With that being said, I’m going to say that the 10th benefit of serverless is its awesomeness and the awesomeness of the people in the serverless community.
Going with a request-driven, serverless architecture could be the right move. It could also be a poor choice for your company, depending on what sort of app you’re building. Be sure to dive into serverless knowing what components your application will have and how large it’ll be. If serverless seems like a great fit, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t try it.
But bear in mind, things can go wrong, and serverless can backlash badly, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing. Serverless itself as a new technology, with the sheer amount of data it generates, can be a lot to take in, especially if you’re just starting out.
It’s important you monitor your serverless setup to make it reliable at any scale (PS serverless scales fast). That’s where Dashbird comes in. Built by serverless developers with specifically serverless technologies and AWS Lambda in mind. So if you’re building your environments on AWS, Dashbird is here to make sure you’re running smoothly: save you hours..even days – on average, Dashbird users have seen their discovery time of an error reduce by 80% – on debugging, give you customized and actionable insights based on the AWS Well-Architected Framework to further improve your infrastructure, and provide a quick and easy to understand real-time overview of the health and performance of your serverless infrastructure.
You can give Dashbird a try for free:
Today we are announcing a new, updated pricing model and the end of free tier for Dashbird.
In this article, we’re covering 4 tips for AWS Lambda optimization for production. Covering error handling, memory provisioning, monitoring, performance, and more.
In this article we’ll go through the ins and outs of AWS Lambda pricing model, how it works, what additional charges you might be looking at and what’s in the fine print.
Dashbird was born out of our own need for an enhanced serverless debugging and monitoring tool, and we take pride in being developers.
Dashbird gives us a simple and easy to use tool to have peace of mind and know that all of our Serverless functions are running correctly. We are instantly aware now if there’s a problem. We love the fact that we have enough information in the Slack notification itself to take appropriate action immediately and know exactly where the issue occurred.
Thanks to Dashbird the time to discover the occurrence of an issue reduced from 2-4 hours to a matter of seconds or minutes. It also means that hundreds of dollars are saved every month.
Great onboarding: it takes just a couple of minutes to connect an AWS account to an organization in Dashbird. The UI is clean and gives a good overview of what is happening with the Lambdas and API Gateways in the account.
I mean, it is just extremely time-saving. It’s so efficient! I don’t think it’s an exaggeration or dramatic to say that Dashbird has been a lifesaver for us.
Dashbird provides an easier interface to monitor and debug problems with our Lambdas. Relevant logs are simple to find and view. Dashbird’s support has been good, and they take product suggestions with grace.
Great UI. Easy to navigate through CloudWatch logs. Simple setup.
Dashbird helped us refine the size of our Lambdas, resulting in significantly reduced costs. We have Dashbird alert us in seconds via email when any of our functions behaves abnormally. Their app immediately makes the cause and severity of errors obvious.