Transcending Traditional Tech: The Astonishing Pros and Cons of Serverless Architecture

Pardon me for this post’s title image, it’s hard to describe in a picture how a serverless looks like (I tried to find a picture of Hoodini vanishing a single server in the middle of an empty room [who said Midjourney… 😅])

TL;DR 😎

Serverless architecture offers DevOps and SREs scalability, reduced operational overhead, cost-effectiveness, and faster time-to-market. However, it also presents challenges like cold starts, vendor lock-in, complex debugging and monitoring, and potential security concerns. It’s a powerful tool when used judiciously, keeping its pros and cons in mind.

And the long full version…

When thinking about serverless architecture, it’s helpful to consider the humble restaurant experience as an analogy. In traditional, on-premises hosting, you’re essentially running your own restaurant. You must manage everything: inventory, staffing, maintenance, utilities, cleaning – the list goes on. With Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS), you’re dining in a restaurant where all these tasks are done for you, but you still need to decide what to order, eat, and pay for what you’ve consumed. On the other hand, serverless is like food delivery. You just place an order, receive your meal, and enjoy, without worrying about all the preparation and cleanup.

That said, let’s dig deeper into the pros and cons of serverless architecture from the lens of DevOps and SRE.

Pros of Serverless Architecture

1. Scalability and Responsiveness: Serverless architectures automatically scale to meet the demands of your application. You don’t have to worry about configuring auto-scaling rules or managing load balancers, which saves considerable time and resources. It’s akin to ordering more food from your delivery service whenever you have extra guests; the capacity to serve is automatically taken care of.

2. Reduced Operational Overhead: With serverless, the provider manages servers, meaning less time spent on server management tasks. You don’t need to apply patches, update OS, or handle other server-related activities. This is a blessing for both DevOps, focusing on speeding deployment, and SREs, focusing on reliability.

3. Cost-Effective: In serverless, you pay only for the time your code is running. There’s no cost for idle time, making it a cost-effective solution for workloads with variable or unpredictable traffic. It’s like only paying for each dish you order, instead of the overheads of running a full kitchen.

4. Faster Time to Market: Serverless promotes microservices architectures and allows developers to focus more on the business logic rather than infrastructure, leading to faster deployments and quicker time to market. It’s like having a team of chefs at your disposal, ready to prepare any dish you order, freeing you to focus on enjoying your meal.

Cons of Serverless Architecture

1. Cold Starts: Cold starts occur when functions are invoked after being idle for some time, leading to a delay in their execution. In our restaurant analogy, it’s like waiting for your food to arrive. You’re not doing the cooking, but there might be a delay.

2. Vendor Lock-In: Serverless architectures can lead to vendor lock-in due to the use of proprietary languages and services. It’s like being restricted to the menu items of a particular food delivery service.

3. Debugging and Monitoring Complexity: Debugging serverless applications can be complex because they’re distributed by nature. Similarly, monitoring is more challenging as traditional methods don’t always fit well with the ephemeral nature of serverless functions. It’s like trying to figure out what went wrong if your food delivery is delayed or the dish isn’t prepared correctly – you have limited visibility into the kitchen.

4. Security Concerns: While serverless providers take care of security at the infrastructure level, application-level security is your responsibility. Serverless functions can also pose a potential attack surface if not configured correctly. It’s like relying on your food delivery service for hygiene in the kitchen, but you’re still responsible for dietary restrictions and food allergies.

Lets wrap it up

Serverless architecture is a powerful tool in a DevOps and SRE arsenal, helping to scale and deploy faster, with less operational overhead and cost-effectiveness. However, it also introduces unique challenges, such as cold starts, vendor lock-in, debugging, monitoring complexity, and security concerns.

What is next?

In my next post, I’m going to elaborate on serverless platform solutions and how we tailored a serverless platform in our on-prem architecture and how we advocate on this solution to our developers.