The Pros and Cons of Serverless Computing

In traditional days if anyone wanted to develop a web application, then they need a physical hardware to run a highly expensive server. The developers also spend more time managing the server infrastructure. Nowadays organizations’ services are becoming increasingly cloud-based.

Serverless computing offer several advantages over traditional cloud services like high scalability, flexibility, less time to release, and reduced cost. Serverless computing has become more popular term in recent years.

What is Serverless Computing?

It is a cloud-based model that allows users to build and run applications or processes without having to interact directly with the underlying server. The provider takes complete responsibility for the scalability and management. The function plays a main role instead of the platform, so the providers call this serverless approach “function-as-a-service (FaaS)”

According to the survey, the global serverless architecture market size is anticipated to reach $21.1 billion by the end of 2026.

How does Serverless Computing work?

In serverless computing, developers can concentrate on development by offloading the other tasks such as maintaining the server hardware, security updates, and backups to a third-party provider by implementing the serverless architecture.

In the FaaS architecture, the execution process is abstracted from the developer, they focus only on writing and deploying the application code.

Advantages of Serverless Computing

There are about 40% of the companies worldwide are using the serverless architecture and many small to big companies are trying to leverage this architecture because of its benefits.

1. Cost-effective

• Maintenance costs are less because it does not require a server.
• Does not require manpower for the maintenance and monitoring of servers.
• Paying for what you use reserves more space.

2. High scalable

• Serverless architecture is easily adaptable.
• They are simple to expand, adding any new feature is very easy.
• Infrastructure does not need to be built before determining the scale.

3. Enhanced productivity

• It enables the quick development of apps so that developers can use more time of developing other skills.
• This will give more time for the developers to focus on other projects to improve the business strategy and service offerings.
• Serverless computing enables faster updates, patches, fixes, or the addition of new features to an application.

4. Reduced complexity

• The code is mainly supported by the cloud platform that is being used.
• Serverless functions take very less coding expertise for making development for people with even lower skills.

Disadvantages of Serverless computing

Although serverless computing has potential benefits, but still teams and developers have potential drawbacks.

1. Debugging is challenging

• It can be challenging to gather information needed to troubleshoot and repair a serverless function because it generates a new version automatically with each startup.
• Debugging is difficult without a tool.
• Debugging becomes difficult because applications are divided into smaller functions and developers lack visibility into backend operations.

2. Security concerns

• Security is managed by the third-party service provider where multiple clients share the same infrastructure. This may affect compliance in organizations.
• Serverless computing is vulnerable because of insecure deployment configurations with multiple administrative errors.

3. Vendor lock-in risk

• The application’s dependence on a vendor will grow if all the backend services are provided to the vendor.
• Each vendor provides slightly different features and workflows. So, setting up a serverless architecture with one vendor can make it challenging to switch vendors later.

4. Response latency

• It is the amount of time required for the software to react after receiving a query. Serverless computing has increased latency response.
• It might be a major drawback, especially if the timing is crucial.

Bottom Line

Serverless computing helps developers reduce time to market and create flexible applications that can be scaled rapidly. Serverless architectures will lower down the cost for apps that experience frequent usage but in times with reasonably constant and extensive workloads may require a traditional setup which is probably less expensive. It is also very difficult to migrate legacy applications to serverless infrastructure is difficult.

Serverless computing is the best way to save resources, increase efficiency and boost productivity for creating event-based apps quickly and effectively.

Sapizon Technologies is a seasoned serverless application development company having expertise in deploying secure and flexible solutions in public, private, and hybrid environments.