Before the advent of the serverless computing platform, developers used to spend many hours solving problems with writing code. Then the testing team made sure that the program ran smoothly.
Gartner estimates that by 2025, more than 50% of large companies will use serverless features as a service. The Serverless approach is already making life easier for businesses, helping with digital transformation and saving budgets. We will tell you what this technology is in essence and why more and more companies are turning to it. Keep reading.
What is Serverless Framework Architecture in a Nutshell?
Serverless computing (or serverless technologies, as they are sometimes called) is a promising cloud computing technology model that has emerged on the horizon of application development and serverless architecture in recent years. The desire to take advantage of the enormous potential of serverless frameworks has led many major market players to be caught up in the overall cloud services boom. Software industry giants such as Google, Microsoft, IBM and Amazon are already offering their customers to migrate on-premises business processes and provide operational efficiencies on flagship serverless computing platforms such as AWS Lambda and Azure Functions.
Simply put, a serverless architecture is an event- and query-driven technology solution that allows application developers to create efficient working environments in the cloud with all the computing resources needed to organize a seamless development process. Such frameworks are very handy, especially for tight deadlines and resource-intensive tasks.
Moreover, choosing serverless services allows optimizing application development processes and thus increasing the efficiency of other business process optimization practices, including DevOps and Agile approach.
4 Basic Features of What is Called Serverless:
- Abstraction. You do not control the server on which your program runs. You know nothing about it at all; all the nuances of the operating system, updates, network settings, and other things are hidden from you. This is done so that you can focus on developing useful functionality rather than administering servers.
- Elasticity. A serverless service provider automatically gives you more or less computing resources, depending on how much of a load your application is under.
- Efficient cost. If your application is idle, you pay nothing because it does not use serverless computing resources at that moment. You only pay for the time your app actually runs.
- Limited life cycle. Your application runs in a container, and, after a short time, from a dozen minutes to several hours, the service automatically stops it. Of course, if the application needs to be called again – a new container will be started.
Why Do You Need to Switch to Serverless Framework Architecture?
Switching to a serverless computing model is not suitable for everyone. Those who need to adjust their own security settings and those who regularly use a server should refrain from switching–in this case, serverless computing frameworks will be more expensive.
Moreover, serverless technology is gaining widespread acceptance, with more than half of cloud users utilizing these advancements. This surge is fueled by various factors, the most significant being the escalating preference for migrating established applications to serverless containers.
As for the rest, serverless computing really simplifies a developer’s life and reduces the company’s costs. The serverless computing model is used in many areas: software development, finance, media, medicine, retail, and social media.
The serverless computing concept aims to reduce burdensome tasks and close supervision that are often associated with traditional cloud infrastructures, where users can offload the necessary hardware. Now we will take a look at the summary of the additional benefits and limitations of serverless computing services.
Let’s start with the benefits:
- The provider takes care of scaling and managing the necessary resources.
- Instantaneous allocation of resources, even for unexpected spikes in workload and disproportionate expansion.
- Users are billed solely based on their resource consumption.
- The provider’s computer centers offer a resilient hardware infrastructure, enhancing error tolerance.
And what about limitations?
- The deployment of serverless architectures demands significant manual effort.
- The issue of lock-in arises, requiring a complete rewriting of event-driven functions while switching providers.
- Monitoring and debugging procedures tend to be intricate due to limited options for in-depth performance and error analysis.
Best Practices for Using the Serverless Framework to Save Costs and Improve App Accuracy
By following these guidelines, you can optimize cost savings, ensure accurate application performance, and streamline development workflows.
Use cost-effective storage options. Evaluate your application storage needs and select the most cost-effective options offered by your cloud provider. The serverless framework architecture lets you easily integrate with various storage services, helping optimize costs without compromising data accuracy.
Monitor and optimize performance. Implement thorough monitoring and logging of your Serverless features. Analyze performance metrics to identify bottlenecks, optimize resource allocation, and eliminate redundant code or inefficient processes. Continuous performance monitoring ensures cost-effectiveness while maintaining the accuracy of your application.
Automate deployment and scaling. Use the automation capabilities of the serverless computing platform to optimize the deployment and scaling process. This reduces the risk of errors and ensures consistent application accuracy. Implement automated scaling to dynamically adjust resources based on demand, optimize costs, and maintain application performance.
Now we’re going to move directly to serverless framework platforms. We have selected the best 3 for you to implement into your business.
Examples of the best serverless framework
Serverless computing has revolutionized application development and deployment by providing scalability, cost-effectiveness, and ease of management. With the abundance of options available, developers often look for the best serverless framework that fits their project requirements and development style. In this part, we’ll look at a few exceptional examples of the best serverless framework architecture and demonstrate their features.
Back4App
Back4App is the best Backend as a Service based on open source, designed to provide extraordinary flexibility and scalability for application developers. More and more organizations are promoting this serverless framework architecture because this BaaS includes most server-based applications in cloud services.
Application developers are using Back4App because it can be effective for running complex applications with rich user interfaces. With fast processing and improved scalability, this serverless framework can help developers handle workloads constructively.
Implementing a serverless approach becomes even more productive when the application becomes more visited every day. By implementing this approach, developers would be comfortable making code changes in line with the growth of the application’s user base.
In addition, Back4App’s serverless computing platform includes API and cloud code features integrated with the database, automatic backups, 24/7 support service, and file storage. With all of these amazing features, Back4App can provide a broader app development experience in the best possible way.
AWS Lambda
It is a serverless computing service that tracks Lambda functions. AWS Lambda helps developers write code without server management and execute it error-free. Application developers are able to get performance data through Amazon CloudWatch after functions are executed.
This serverless framework approach allows developers to scale applications by executing code and similarly handling each trigger response separately. In addition, AWS Lambda facilitates a payment model in which you have to pay for computing time consumed. In this case, you can optimize your code execution time by choosing the memory size appropriate to the program’s functionality.
You can initialize your functions and keep them ready for confirmation within milliseconds by activating Provisioned Concurrency. Developing an application with AWS Lambda is as easy as writing code in the AWS Lambda editor, configuring it to use the necessary computational resources, and paying for the time used.
Cloudflare Workers
Cloudflare Worker is a serverless computing platform that effectively performs serverless functions as close to the end user as possible. In the Cloudflare Worker platform, application developers write operations in JavaScript for the platform’s API services.
In other words, developers can use whatever features the service worker offers to write code. Developers execute code using the Chrome V8 engine. After developers write and execute the code, they deploy it to Cloudflare data centers available around the world.
Cloudflare Worker offers developers the ease of working with the full suite of software built into the application, allowing them the freedom to pay attention to application logic. In addition, serverless computing provides additional flexibility in investing in the services used, rather than pre-dedicated packages.
Wrapping Up
Many risks can either be minimized or simply accepted as fact. For example, functions can be warmed up so that the user never has to wait for it to start. For debugging, there are approaches that make it less painful.
Also, the serverless framework architecture approach doesn’t involve moving the entire program in the blink of an eye. A much better option is to take an evolutionary approach, where you start writing features for non-critical or non-custom-facing parts of your application. Do we think serverless framework computing will work for any company? Certainly, no. Do we think it’s worth investing the time to try it out in practice? Undoubtedly!
