Serverless is an option that many companies are adopting. If you're hesitant, your modern workflow and demands may require a change sooner or later.
Modern businesses have no choice but to adopt new technologies faster than ever before. If a company stands firm, it runs the risk of losing to competition that works with architectures, software and methodologies that far surpass more traditional routes.
For example, enterprise-level companies would have difficulty competing without using containers, cloud-native platforms, or progressive web applications. This is because traditional, monolithic applications simply aren't scalable or versatile enough to meet the ebb and flow of demand.
The same thing goes for serverless.
Serverless platforms offer many advantages over traditional data centers.
But why is serverless the best option for you in 2023? Aside from the obvious reasons – server management is a thing of the past and cost reduction – why should a company change? Let's take a look at some of the reasons you might not have thought of, each of which can bring dramatic benefits to your company.
Works as a service
You may not be familiar with Functions as a Service (FaaS). Essentially, FaaS is a part of cloud computing (and, by transitive association, serverless) that provides a platform for developers to build, run, and manage application functionality without having to worry about first building and managing the infrastructure, usually associated the deployment of an application or service.
FaaS can be thought of in the same way as libraries and frameworks, as its developers don't have to worry as much about building everything from scratch. Instead, they already have pre-built parts of the stack available. This has the effect of not only simplifying designs, but also making them more reliable, easier to replicate and cheaper to build.
Who doesn't want that?
Some of the most popular FaaS solutions include:
- IBM Cloud Functions
- AWS Lambda from Amazon
- Google Cloud Functions
- Microsoft Azure Functions
- OpenFaaS
Any of the above options would serve your company well. Given the reliability and speed of the options above, each of these FaaS offerings will help not only speed up the software deployment cycle but also ensure it is as reliable as possible.
Unparalleled scalability
If you currently rely on a traditional data center, what do you do when it comes time to scale? If you've designed your data center to handle considerable growth, you might not have many problems. However, if your data center was created to meet your company's needs when it was built, there is a good chance that scalability will be limited. To meet the ever-increasing demand, you would likely have to buy more hardware – be it servers, RAM, faster CPUs, or expensive GPUs.
This can be an expensive proposition for any company, especially if demand is increasing exponentially.
With serverless technology, you don't have to worry about adding expensive hardware to meet growing demand. Of course, it's not just an initial expense you'll have to deal with. There is also the time required to deploy and configure the hardware to work with your current scenario. This can get complicated. And what happens if the developers/designers who originally built your data center are no longer on your payroll? Suddenly, this task becomes considerably more challenging.
Scalability is not an issue with serverless. And given that companies like AWS and Google are equipped to meet demand or growth of virtually any size, you can be confident that these platforms will be able to meet your scalability demands, no matter how large they may be.
Of course, you'll have to pay more as you use more, but that cost will still be cheaper than buying, deploying, and maintaining a data center full of servers.
Faster deployments
Serverless makes deployments much faster. Instead of having to upload all of their code to a server or worry about backend configurations, developers can upload smaller pieces of code to iterate an application. This method makes it considerably easier to patch, update, add new features, or fix problems with an application or service. And with FaaS also in play, developers can upload, patch, or patch one function at a time.
Or developers can upload an entire app at once.
The important thing is that your developers will have a choice.
Because your developers can focus their development on a stateless, short-lived, per-function methodology, deployments are exponentially faster.
Simplified container management
One of the biggest challenges your developers and operations teams will encounter is deploying and managing the Kubernetes container orchestration platform. Anyone who has done this will tell you how challenging it can be.
Many serverless platforms simplify this process. Companies like AWS and Google have web-based GUIs that make deploying a Kubernetes cluster easy, greatly simplifying the process. These clusters can be deployed and destroyed at will, which makes using serverless containers even more attractive.
The truth is, deploying and managing a Kubernetes cluster can be a full-time job in itself. This means you will have to dedicate a portion of your DevOps team just for this task.
Instead, go serverless and you'll remove a considerable barrier to entry for deploying and managing containers.
Built-in cloud native
Finally, there is the cloud native aspect. Few companies (especially enterprise-level) can escape cloud-native technology as it has become a necessity for many aspects of business. It's not just Google Drive, Dropbox or iCloud.
Cloud native is all about microservices. In this respect, it is closely related to containers, which (as you know) have become crucial for modern companies looking to satisfy the ebb and flow of demand.
Cloud native computing is a software development process that works with cloud computing to build and deploy scalable applications. With cloud native development, your teams can work across public, private, or hybrid clouds, providing much more flexibility than they would otherwise have.
Cloud native can increase the efficiency of your software development lifecycle, reduce the costs of your deployments, and ensure the availability of your applications and services. Furthermore, if your company has any hope of moving to an agile methodology, cloud-native technology will be a requirement.
Companies that use serverless
It should come as no surprise that several large companies are using serverless technology as their platform of choice. Consider the following list of companies:
- Netflix
- Coke
- mobile tee
- I steal
- BBC
- Codepen
- Zalora
- Nordström
- Mindup
- Clover
- Lula
- Figure
Clearly, if serverless is good enough for these companies, it should also be good enough for your company.
Conclusion
Serverless is here to stay, and any company would be hard-pressed to find a reason not to move to the new world order data center. With many options available for a serverless host, you'll be able to find a platform that perfectly suits your needs, budget, and in-house talent.
