What Is Serverless?

Chapter 1. Why Serverless?

Serverless computing (or just “serverless”) has become a hot topic in the last few years. When Amazon released its Lambda serverless platform in 2014, not many people had caught on to the power and leverage a serverless platform represented. Now, a little more than five years later, many organizations from startups to global enterprises are working to include serverless as part of their corporate IT solutions.

In this report, we’ll explore just what serverless is (Chapter 2) and the seven key elements all serverless platforms deal with (Chapter 3). Along the way we’ll take a peek into the history of online computing to see why serverless has become so important. Finally, we’ll look ahead to see what’s next in the world of online computing (Chapter 5).

A Definition

Serverless is a vague term that has taken on various meanings in recent years. For this report, “serverless” is defined as:

An architectural approach to software solutions that relies on small independent functions running on transient servers in an elastic runtime environment.

That’s a pretty simple definition made up of a few important elements. First, serverless is based on small independent functions. This is sometimes referred to as Functions as a Service, or FaaS. Writing small bits of working code is essential to a successful serverless solution.

Second, these functions run on transient servers. That means the actual machines hosting the code are temporary instances. Unlike on-premises ...