SEARCH (ENTER TO SEE ALL RESULTS)

POPULAR TOPICS

Contributed
News
Analysis
The New Stack Makers
Tutorial
Research
Podcast
Science
Feature
Off-The-Shelf Hacker
Skip to content
  • Podcasts
    • TNS @Scale Series
    • TNS Analysts Round Table
    • TNS Context Weekly News
    • TNS Makers Interviews
    • All Podcasts
  • Events
  • Ebooks
    • Storage
    • DevOps
    • Serverless
    • Microservices
    • Kubernetes Ecosystem
    • Docker Ecosystem
    • All Ebooks
  • Newsletter
  • Sponsorship
  • • • •
    • Podcasts
      • TNS @Scale Series
      • TNS Analysts Round Table
      • TNS Context Weekly News
      • TNS Makers Interviews
      • All Podcasts
    • Events
    • Ebooks
      • Machine Learning
      • DevOps
      • Serverless
      • Microservices
      • Kubernetes Ecosystem
      • Docker Ecosystem
      • All Ebooks
    • Newsletter
    • Sponsorship
Skip to content
  • Architecture
    • Cloud Native
    • Containers
    • Edge/IoT
    • Microservices
    • Networking
    • Serverless
    • Storage
  • Development
    • Development
    • Cloud Services
    • Data
    • Machine Learning
    • Security
  • Operations
    • CI/CD
    • Culture
    • DevOps
    • Kubernetes
    • Monitoring
    • Service Mesh
    • Tools
 

Serverless

▾ 1 MINUTE READ — CLOSE

Serverless is Where Application Infrastructure is Headed

Experts and visionaries in distributed systems believe serverless technologies are the future of application architecture — the next logical advancement after containers and microservices. And pockets of leading edge companies in industries such as media, travel and finance have already embraced serverless as a means to dramatically reduce operational overhead and streamline the DevOps cycle, while increasing scalability and resiliency.

“The future will be containerized and those containers will run on serverless infrastructure.”

— Brendan Burns, distinguished engineer at Microsoft and guest contributor on The New Stack.

Serverless functions, also often known as Functions as a Service (FaaS), are runtimes which execute applications but do not store data. They are the microservices of microservices, Adron Hall joked in an episode of The New Stack Analysts. And they are called based on an event that happens in the cloud.

In this model, organizations only pay for the resources they use — actual consumption — rather than pre-purchased services based on guesswork. The server management and capacity planning decisions are completely hidden from the developer, thus the term “serverless.” The servers are fully abstracted away. Instead, a cloud provider, like Amazon Web Services (AWS Lambda), Google Cloud (Google Cloud Functions) or Microsoft Azure (Azure Functions) dynamically manages the assignment and distribution of resources.

Serverless Benefits are Many

The benefits of serverless architectures are many. Pay-as-you go services have a cost benefit, but the true value lies in organizational efficiency. Developers spend more time writing code that directly benefits the business and IT spends less time maintaining old infrastructure. And it takes less time for developers to get code into production.

But the Serverless Ecosystem is Still Developing

Still, there are many challenges to serverless adoption. Serverless requires a new approach to development and a new set of a tools based on a DevOps culture. Latency and high performance can also become an issue in the cloud, as can monitoring, debugging and security.

The relatively limited ecosystem around serverless technologies, combined with the challenges of operating in the cloud, have led many organizations to approach serverless cautiously and in a phased adoption. Serverless code can be used alongside code deployed in traditional styles, such as a monolith or microservices — which makes it ideal to begin experimenting with for any number of use cases.


A newsletter digest of the week’s most important stories & analyses.

Do you also want to be notified of the following?
We don’t sell or share your email. By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Serverless / Sponsored

Spring, Functions, Serverless and You

19 Mar 2019 12:23pm, by Ben Wilcock

Cloud Services / Serverless / Contributed

Serverless Challenges We Need to Overcome

18 Mar 2019 11:00am, by Aviad Mor

Monitoring / Serverless / Technology / Sponsored

Why You Can’t Ignore Changes to Monitoring and Logging for Serverless

12 Mar 2019 12:00pm, by Nitzan Shapira

Serverless / Sponsored

When On-Premise Serverless Beats the Cloud

28 Feb 2019 3:00am, by Maame Efua Boham

Serverless / Contributed

Serverless Needs a Bolder, Stateful Vision

26 Feb 2019 3:00am, by Jonas Bonér

Kubernetes / Serverless / Sponsored

How Knative Can Unite Kubernetes and Serverless

22 Feb 2019 9:30am, by Twain Taylor

Cloud Services / Serverless / Sponsored

Testing Developer Velocity: AWS EC2 vs Lambda vs Lambda on Stackery

20 Feb 2019 9:59am, by Nočnica Fee

Serverless

Nuweba Aims to Bring Speed, Security and Visibility to Serverless

19 Feb 2019 4:00am, by Mike Melanson

Cloud Services / Serverless / Technology

Serverless: Everything You Need to Know About Google Cloud Functions

15 Feb 2019 3:00am, by Janakiram MSV

Cloud Services / Serverless / Sponsored

The Developer’s New Role in 300 Serverless Environments

13 Feb 2019 6:00am, by Nočnica Fee

Monitoring / Serverless

Lumigo: End-to-End Serverless Monitoring and Troubleshooting

11 Feb 2019 10:49am, by Susan Hall

Machine Learning / Serverless

How Serverless Platforms Could Power an Event-Driven AI Pipeline

7 Feb 2019 12:11pm, by Mark Boyd

Serverless / Sponsored

Finding Serverless’ Hidden Costs

31 Jan 2019 2:31pm, by Nitzan Shapira

Development / Serverless

Epsagon Plug-In Packages External Serverless Code for AWS Lambda

21 Jan 2019 9:00am, by Mark Boyd

Development / Serverless

This Week in Programming: Not What You Think It Is

19 Jan 2019 6:00am, by Mike Melanson

Cloud Native / Containers / Serverless / Sponsored

What Comes Next After Microservices, Kubernetes, and Serverless

18 Jan 2019 11:52am, by Sonya Koptyev

Serverless

FaaS Selection Criteria: Little Desire for Multicloud

17 Jan 2019 9:16am, by Lawrence E Hecht

Cloud Native / Cloud Services / Kubernetes / Microservices / Serverless / Sponsored

Two CEOs Describe What the Cloud Really Offers Them  

10 Jan 2019 3:00pm, by B. Cameron Gain

Cloud Services / Serverless

GitLab Uses TriggerMesh to Offer Knative-Based Serverless Workflows

7 Jan 2019 2:58pm, by Joab Jackson

Cloud Native / Cloud Services / Kubernetes / Serverless / Sponsored

Why Serverless Matters

4 Jan 2019 12:05pm, by B. Cameron Gain

Culture / Data / Serverless

APIdays Gets Political and Heavy in Paris

3 Jan 2019 3:00am, by B. Cameron Gain

Serverless / Contributed

Has the Serverless Era Truly Arrived?

31 Dec 2018 3:00am, by Ori Pekelman

Cloud Services / Kubernetes / Security / Serverless

Google’s Kelsey Hightower Dissects Serverless Hype and Hope

27 Dec 2018 3:00pm, by B. Cameron Gain

Cloud Native / Cloud Services / Kubernetes / Serverless / Sponsored

KubeCon Pancake Podcast: Real Stories About the Shift from Monolith to FaaS

21 Dec 2018 10:44am, by B. Cameron Gain

Cloud Native / Kubernetes / Serverless / Contributed

KubeCon 2018: Kubernetes is the New OS, So What?

20 Dec 2018 12:00pm, by Yaron Haviv

Cloud Native / Security / Serverless / Sponsored

CISOs: 5 Essential Features in a Cloud Native Security Platform

18 Dec 2018 3:00am, by John Morello

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Architecture

  • Cloud Native
  • Containers
  • Edge/IoT
  • Microservices
  • Networking
  • Serverless
  • Storage

Development

  • Cloud Services
  • Data
  • Development
  • Machine Learning
  • Security

Operations

  • CI/CD
  • Culture
  • DevOps
  • Kubernetes
  • Monitoring
  • Service Mesh
  • Tools

The New Stack

  • Ebooks
  • Podcasts
  • Events
  • Newsletter
  • About / Contact
  • Sponsors
  • Sponsorship
  • Disclosures
  • Contributions
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • YouTube
  • Soundcloud
  • LinkedIn
  • Slideshare
  • RSS

© 2021 The New Stack. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy. Terms of Use.