This document explores serverless architecture in cloud computing, defining key concepts like Backend as a Service (BaaS) and Functions as a Service (FaaS). It highlights the benefits, such as reduced operational costs and easier management, while also addressing drawbacks like vendor lock-in and security concerns. The document concludes that serverless technologies are still developing but encourage innovative architecture thinking.

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Serverless Architecture

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Cloud Computing -
Reminders

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What is the Cloud?
“Cloud computing is on-demand access to virtualized IT
resources that are housed outside of your own data
center, shared by others, simple to use, paid for via
subscription, and accessed over the Web.”
- John Foley, Information Week IaaS

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What is the Cloud?
“Cloud computing is on-demand access to virtualized IT
resources that are housed outside of your own data
center, shared by others, simple to use, paid for via
subscription, and accessed over the Web.”
- John Foley, Information Week IaaS

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Different types of Cloud

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Serverless

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Hot topic

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What is Serverless?
• Two different but overlapping areas:
• Backend as a Service (BaaS)
• Function as a Service (FaaS)

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Backend as a Service
• 3rd party applications / services in the cloud to manage
server-side logic and state
• Application using them were the first called Serverless
• Rich client applications (SPA or mobile apps)

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(Mobile) Backend as a Service: Example

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Backend as a Service: Example

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Functions as a Service
• Server-side logic written by the application developer
• Run in stateless compute containers
• Event-triggered
• Ephemeral (one or more invocation)
• Fully managed by a 3rd party

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Functions as a Service: Example
https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/

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Functions as a Service: Example
https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/

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Functions as a Service: Example
https://aws.amazon.com/lambda/

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Language and Framework agnostic

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FaaS vs PaaS

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FaaS vs PaaS

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FaaS pricing
AWS Lambda Google Functions Azure Functions
Requests $0.20 / million requests $0.40 / million requests $0.20 / million requests
Duration $0.00001667 / GB-second
$0.0000025 / GB-second
$0.0000100 / GHz-second
$0.000016 / GB-second
Free Tier
1 million requests / month
400,000 GB-s / month
2 million requests / month
400,000 GB-s / month
200,000 GHz-s / month
1 million requests / month
400,000 GB-s / month

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Traditional 3-tier client-oriented
architecture
Client
(Browser) PetStore
Server
Database

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Traditional 3-tier client-oriented
architecture
Client
(Browser)
PetStore
Server
Database

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Serverless Architecture
API Gateway
Purchase Function
Search Function
Client
(Browser)
Authorization Service
(Auth0)
Product Database
(Firebase)
Purchase Database
(Fauna)

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#NoOps?
• Serverless might mean ‘No internal Sys Admin’
• But ops are still recommended for:
• Monitoring
• Deployments
• Security
• And everything they never have time to focus on :-)

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Benefits

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Reduced operational cost
• Economy of scale
• BaaS:
• Less development
• Less infrastructure
• Less ops
• FaaS:
• Only pay for the compute that you need!

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Easier Operational Management
• Scaling benefits
• Reduced packaging and deployment complexity
• Time to market / experimentation

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Drawbacks

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The inherent ones
• Vendor control
• Multitenancy problems
• Vendor lock-in
• Security concerns
• FaaS are stateless

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The implementation ones
• Execution duration
• Testing
• Monitoring / Debugging
• Lack of tools and experience

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Serverless Framework
• Command-line tool providing:
• Scaffolding
• Workflow automation
• Plugin system
• Easy deployment to most of the FaaS services

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Conclusion

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Conclusion
• Serverless systems are still in their infancy
• Push a better thinking of the architecture
• Micro-services!
• Reduce time-to-market
• Ready for production?
• Apache OpenWhisk (by IBM)!

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Thank you!