This document discusses serverless computing and functions as a service (FaaS). It begins by defining serverless and FaaS, noting that FaaS is a means to achieve serverless architectures. It then charts the evolution of infrastructure models from on-premise hardware to platform as a service (PaaS) and container as a service (CaaS). The document examines the financial model of FaaS, how it incentivizes modularization. It provides examples of pricing for AWS Lambda. It also outlines some common serverless platforms, use cases, considerations for the future of serverless, and concludes with contact information for the author.

1. Crafting integrated IT solutions that make your
business thrive.
Jeroen Sterken
IT Coordinator
jeroen.sterken@faros.be
@jeroensterken
www.faros.be | info@faros.be
Invisible infrastructure: the
future of development

2. Serverless/FaaS
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Noun
A buzz word that’s often used in bold statements, like:

3. Serverless ... It’s just a name
• We could have called it “Jeff”
• It’s NOT about removing the servers
• “Server”-”less” is a pretty descriptive name in the end
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4. Serverless/FaaS
• FaaS
• A mean to achieve the serverless
• ‘Small’ isolated task triggered by an event that runs … somehow on an as-needed basis
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monolith microservices functions

5. Evolution
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6. Evolution
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1 . h a r d w a r e a n d h o s t e d s y s t e m s o n p r e m i s e
“I love the smell of a new Sun server in the morning”

7. Evolution
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2 . r e n t i n g h a r d w a r e

8. Evolution
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3 . I a a S – I n f r a s t r u c t u r e A s A S e r v i c e
This IaaS .. it’s huuuuuge

9. Evolution
• Next level of abstraction
• Rent out complete development platforms
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4 . P a a S – P l a t f o r m A s A S e r v i c e
…

10. Evolution
• CaaS: Container as a Service
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4 ’ . C a a S – C o n t a i n e r A s A S e r v i c e

11. T h e e n d - s t a t e o f i n f r a s t r u c t u r e a s w e c u r r e n t l y k n o w i t ,
u s i n g v i r t u a l i z a t i o n , g r i d a n d a u t o m a t e d m a n a g e m e n t t e c h n o l o g i e s
t o d e l i v e r i n f r a s t r u c t u r a l s e r v i c e s
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12. Serverless
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W h y t h e b u z z ?
Source: https://www.capgemini.com/be-en/service/technovision-2017/

13. Financial model
S e r v e r l e s s
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14. Financial model
• Pay for running a server/VM (Reserved computing capacity)
• Provisioning VM is cheap/fast compared to physical servers
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< F a a S
hardware
on
premise
hardware
renting
IaaS
PaaS
pay/server

15. Financial model
• Incentive = bundling services/applications in a server
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< F a a S
architecture deployment model
modular
loose coupling
bundling

16. Financial model
• Pay/execution/memory
• Financial incentive
• Modularize / loose coupling
• No penalty for multi-versioning
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F a a S
DOC
monolith microservices functions
SVG PDF

17. Financial model
• Only charged when used, based on :
• Maximum memory size (GB)
• Function execution time (seconds)
• Unit
• GB-sec : gigabyte-seconds
• Additional charges
• (external) data transfer
• S3
• Dynamo
• https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/pricing/
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F a a S - A W S P r i c i n g

18. Financial model
• Example: 1 Function
• 256 MB (= 0.25 GB)
• 10 million requests/month (duration = 1 sec/request)
• Let’s do the math!
• 10 million requests * 1sec/request = 10,000,000 seconds (execution time)
• 0.25 GB * 10,000,000 sec = 2.500.000 GB-sec
- 400,000 GB-sec (free)
2,100,000 GB-sec
• 2,100,000 GB-sec * $0.00001667 / GB-sec
= $35.01
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F a a S - A W S P r i c i n g

19. Financial model
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F a a S - A W S P r i c i n g

20. R a n g i n g f r o m 5 0 p e r c e n t t o 9 0 p e r c e n t ,
w i t h 7 0 p e r c e n t t o 8 0 p e r c e n t a v e r a g e
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Source: https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/cloud/serverless-computing-cloud-evolution

21. Serverless
P l a t f o r m s & u s e c a s e s
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22. Serverless
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P l a t f o r m s
AWS lambda apache azure functions google
cloud functions

23. Use cases
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W e b a p p l i c a t i o n s a n d b a c k e n d s

24. Use cases
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D a t a p r o c e s s i n g

25. Let’s do some coding!
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26. Random Number Generator
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Randon number
generator
http://..../number
6
6

27. Future of Serverless
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28. Future of Serverless
• Pros
• Hidden infrastructure (no-ops)
• Lower operational cost / pay-per-use model
• Time to market
• Auto scaling
• Encouraged to think small / event-driven / loose coupling
• Cons
• Development
• Vendor lock-in / Cloud provider centered
• Re-thinking session/authorization
• Managing lot’s of functions
• Cold start
• AWS lambda : 300 seconds limit
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E v e r y t h i n g F a a S ?

29. Future of Serverless
• Use cases
• IoT, mobile applications and web-based applications, …
• Combination of microservices & Lambda’s
• Shift
• Embrace devops culture
• Cultural shift
• Developer shift
• Create reference architecture to guide app development
• Do NOT reuse existing code
• Use Platform services for non-business logic
• Community / management / tooling / best practices in full progress
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E v e r y t h i n g F a a S ?

30. - G o n z a l o F e r n a n d e z
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31. Gaston Geenslaan 11/B4
3000 Leuven
info@faros.be
www.faros.be