Driving Innovation with Serverless Computing

Serverless computing is expected to see explosive growth in the following years, driven by AI-based innovation.

This growth is inevitable regarding the evolution of cloud computing. Beginning with physical servers, which were cumbersome and manual, we shifted to a combination of multiple servers into a cluster (server clusters and VMs) where we handled virtual machines to run various applications in isolation on top of this infrastructure layer. Here the server administration was mostly manual. Next came IaaS – leasing servers and operational services in a ‘pay as you use’ model.

PaaS also became widespread. But even though PaaS was helpful to build large-scale apps, it had its fair share of manual administrative hassles. Then began containerization – where one was able to pack the application with all its dependencies into one box and operate it anywhere, irrespective of software dependencies the host system had installed, and capable of operating on any system. Here, Docker and Kubernetes are obviously popular choices.

And now the serverless compute – the fundamental logic and base of serverless setup are, that its business logic is executed as functions and events.

Why use serverless computing?

Serverless computing has a clear advantage over traditional cloud-based or server-centric infrastructure. For developers, serverless architectures allow better scalability, flexibility, and faster time to release, all at a decreased cost.

Serverless architectures reduce the redundancy of purchasing, provisioning, and managing backend servers which is a true help for developers.

Zero server management 

The vendors handle everything, freeing up developers, eliminating the DevOps investment costs, and evading constraints of server capacity.

Developers will only be priced for the server space they use. It acts in a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. Developers will be only charged for what they use.

As to the code, it only operates when the backend functions are required by the serverless application, and then the code automatically gets sized up as and when needed.

Greater scalability

Unlike traditional servers, applications that are created with a serverless infrastructure will automatically scale up as the user base increases or the usage rises.

Faster deployments and updates

Here developers can instantly upload the pieces of code and get quicker results and release new products. Due to its multi-functionality, developers can upload the code entirely at once since the application is not a monolithic stack but rather a compilation of functions provisioned by the vendor.

Decreases latency – Code runs closer to the end-user

The request raised from the user will no longer have to go all the way to the original server. The code can be managed from anywhere.

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 20% of the world’s companies will have gone serverless.

Serverless computing stimulates the speed of development, automatic scaling and significantly decreases runtime costs

Artificial intelligence-based innovation

As more organizations transition to cloud-based PaaS, more public cloud companies have started to invest in getting or building serverless components that have pre-built unit functionality. These off-the-shelf tools help organizations to test, iterate new concepts without having to get high risk or expenditure.

With the democratization of AI which ends in a reduction of time, money and resources to get started, even startups or small teams within huge organizations have access to cloud-based, prepackaged algorithms allowing different AI models that can speed up innovation.

Demystifying the innovator’s dilemma

With today’s cloud computing capabilities, you can promote your idea without a huge budget or a big team. The cloud promotes innovation not only from a technology point of view but also from a company and market validation point of view whilst facilitating faster repetitions.

Now businesses can roll out evidence of concepts (testing with preferred focus groups and iteration) within 3 to 5 months thanks to cloud computing. If your product seems viable, it will be ready for market release and if the product crashes for some purpose, it still would not have cost you a bomb.

Serverless computing supports Enterprise DevOps

Including DevOps departments in enterprise companies makes a bold statement about the status of your digital transformation and abilities. If you haven’t yet transitioned to a DevOps form of working, the time is now.

DevOps is an innovative group that works as the link between development and operations. DevOps teams are well-versed in Agile principles and a type of coding language. DevOps developers can build software but spend much of their time mixing out patches, instead, to customize and integrate a number of business applications.

Serverless computing is one important part of any DevOps environment. It might not be correct for every dev project, but it surely can work for many of them.

Conclusion

Serverless cloud computing has produced innovation more affordable and accessible to companies of all sizes and shapes. The founding steps that we require, already exist in the serverless cloud; we actually don’t require to spend our time and resources building them. All we need to do is determine out how to leverage them in ways to help the businesses and our customers.

Need some guidance with Serverless Computing? Choose to team up with a QA services provider like TestUnity. Our team of testing experts specializes in QA testing and have years of experience implementing tests with testing software. Partner with our QA engineers who can help your team in adopting testing best practices. Get in touch with a TestUnity expert today.

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