Serverless Computing And The Changing Paradigm Of Cloud

With India's blockchain startup 5ire becoming a unicorn, even as economic headwinds make headlines worldwide, it's safe to say that innovation is continuously being supported in the country. While the startup ecosystem has hit an unprecedented purple patch in the last few years, the wheel of innovation keeps on rolling.

An interesting cog in this wheel is serverless computing, which has been powering companies ranging from Fintechs to e-Commerce and even tech pioneers.

But What's Serverless?

We are in an age where applications make our world go round. But did you know that the best organisations such as Netflix, BBC, Airbnb, and Nike leverage the power of serverless computing to deliver their product? Why - you ask? Simple. Developers need agile deployment and scalability – serverless computing allows this without the hassle of procuring and managing servers.

"Developers are leveraging serverless, as they don't have to manage any infrastructure and can focus more on the core activities. In India, smaller businesses or solo developers can innovate with serverless computing and reduce their costs drastically along with reducing the time spent on running codes", said P Saravanan, Vice-President, Cloud Engineering, Oracle India.

But does this mean that the age of servers is behind us? Not quite.

The name 'serverless' is quite misleading, to begin with. But serverless computing in its most basic form means that a developer does not have to worry about managing servers – as that part is completely handled by a cloud service provider. Servers will always exist as long as there is data!

Every major cloud service provider provides a serverless platform today, including IBM Cloud, AWS, Oracle, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure. A serverless model means that there are no dedicated server resources. Instead, the resources are allocated on a 'need-for' basis to applications. This means that the customers only pay for resources used for a certain during of time.

Serverless architecture allows an organisation's developers to focus just on the logic and code without having to worry about scaling, fault tolerance, and redundancy of the underlying architecture. The cloud service provider has all that covered.  

 Fig: How Serverless Is Being Used |
Source: IBM 'Serverless in the enterprise, 2021' Report

Cloud-first With Serverless

As enterprises continue to digitalise and implement cloud-first strategies, serverless architectures are bound to become more and more relevant. It's worth it to have an architecture that takes the burden off the shoulders of engineers who have to perform the additional task of server management while being in charge of innovation too. With serverless, they can finally bring applications faster to the marketplace at a lower cost, driving revenue and increasing customer satisfaction.  

According to IBM 'Serverless in the enterprise, 2021' report, 85 per cent of IT executives, developer executives, and developers from large and midmarket companies said that the effort and expense of adopting serverless architecture are worth it.

"Implementing serverless architecture has become an integral part of embracing a cloud-first strategy for IT leaders today", explained Girish Dhanakshirur, IBM Distinguished Engineer & CTO, IBM India Software Labs.

"Organisations across industries have gained a significant competitive edge from serverless. Operational cost reduction is a key benefit of a serverless approach. However, there are other benefits too like improved application quality, employee productivity, greater flexibility to scale, and faster time to market to effectively respond to dynamic marketplace changes", he added.

Fig: Benefits of Serverless Architecture |
Source: IBM 'Serverless in the enterprise, 2021' Report

Evolution

Straits Research report from 2022 suggests that the serverless computing market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 26 per cent between 2020 and 2029. SMEs are expected to increase serverless computing adoption to reduce costs and deliver improved products during this time.

Geography-wise, the report indicates that North America dominates the serverless market with a CAGR of 42 per cent. But Asia-Pacific is touted as the fastest growing region with a CAGR of 29.5 per cent.

With the ascension of serverless, the cloud is embracing the new paradigm, which represents a change in infrastructure and software delivery. This new development will allow companies of all sizes to achieve scalability and easy implementation. "Serverless platforms are continuing their evolution, delivering new and expanded functionality for a greater variety of applications, including predictable workloads, larger processing payloads, or applications that require frequent cold starts. In fact, our research found that most current users and nonusers are excited about what serverless architectures can do for their organisations, and both groups believe that the future is bright for the approach", said Dhanakshirur.

Endless Possibilities

As companies continue to explore a cloud-first approach, they are bound to take an interest in serverless architecture sooner than later. But as we turn another page in our cloud history, it will be interesting to see how the businesses adopt the serverless model.

"It remains to be seen if serverless computing will overtake Paas and IaaS as the preferred choice of cloud and become a standard feature or it will remain a niche solution for specific use cases. Either way, serverless computing is bound to become a key source for innovation as businesses discover the benefits of this approach to cloud computing", said Oracle's Saravanan.

But as a country, India is still at its initial stages of cloud adoption as businesses take on the journey of digitalisation. "Having a robust cloud architecture is integral to serverless computing. In India, cloud adoption is gaining significant momentum across industries as businesses go through their modernisation journey. As the cloud adoption accelerates, serverless computing will also gain widespread traction," emphasised Dhanakshirur.

For applications, serverless seems like the future. And as serverless itself morphs and evolves to address a few of its challenges, more use cases are expected to emerge to help organisations scale better and develop faster.