Intro to Serverless

So what’s serverless?

Serverless is a service you can use to build and deploy applications on a server that is not managed by you.

Wait What? - a server that is not managed by you?
So you mean to tell me that “serverless” still has servers???

Sigh 😓 - we’ve already stumbled on why the term “serverless” is so confusing… Again, serverless is just a way of saying that you don’t have to worry about managing a server.

Serverless technology is kind of how the Wizard of Oz was just a normal guy behind a curtain pretending to be a powerful wizard, using tricks and illusions to maintain his powerful persona. 👨‍💻

What does managing a server look like?

Imagine you had a server - Or let’s say we’re starting from scratch, what would you do to get a server? Well - a server is just a computer, and a computer is a machine with parts. The first thing you don’t have to worry about with “serverless” is buying hardware and installing an operating system so you can actually use it… (duh)

Okay - great - you have a physical device, what’s next? Well - you want to connect it to the network, right? Remember you started this journey of getting a server because you wanted to serve content. That means you need to configure network settings and access controls. Why user access controls? Well, assuming you have content that is important to you, the kind that makes what you’re doing a business, you kind of need to protect that stuff.

You know what that means? Not only are you going to have to manage who accesses what on your system, you will also have to make sure that the server is patched regularly for security vulnerabilities. I don’t know about you, but I have enough of a hard time keeping up with the news.

Besides having a proactive security posture, you also have to monitor things like your application performance. How will your server do on Black Friday when traffic skyrockets (🤞)?

Alright hot stuff - you’re doing good… BAM! Christmas tree falls on your cat server! Did you have it backed up? 🙀

Alright - maybe it was a power outage… don’t be smug - do you have a backup generator? 🤔 Btw - that CPU fan isn’t running great, are you working on getting it replaced?

If you want to avoid these problems, hand them off and you’ll be SERVERLESS! 👍

Okay “serverless”… what are you selling?

--- If that’s your real name ---

Function as a service

A.K.A using a remote server’s CPU

Imagine you could write a tiny piece of code, hand it over to the cloud, and the provider only spins up a little compute just to run it when someone calls it. That’s function as a service (FaaS)! You never see the server, you never patch an OS - you just hand them the code and they run it. It’s the “pay-as-you-go” model for code, like ordering a single slice of pizza instead of a whole pie. You only pay for what you actually eat. 🍕

Backend as a service

A.K.A using a remote server’s storage

Now think about all the plumbing you’d normally have to setup - authentication, a database, file storage. Backend as a Service (BaaS) hands you an API that does all that heavy lifting. It’s like walking into a restaurant, pointing at a dish, and having the chef serve it without you ever seeing the stove, the dishwasher, the fridge. You get a plate of food, and you just eat it. 🍔

With Backend as a Service, the vendor worries about scaling, security, and uptime, while you just build the frontend.