Serverless computing is likely to see an explosive growth in coming years, driven by AI-based innovation.
This growth is inevitable considering the evolution of cloud computing. Starting with physical servers, which were cumbersome and manual, we moved to a combination of multiple servers into a cluster (server clusters and VMs) where we used virtual machines to run multiple applications in isolation on top of this infrastructure layer. Here the server administration was largely manual. Later came IaaS – renting servers and operational services in a ‘pay as you use’ model.
PaaS also became popular. But even though PaaS was conducive to build large scale apps, it had its fair share of manual administrative hassles. Then came containerization – where one was able to pack the application with all its dependencies into one box and run it anywhere, irrespective of software dependencies the host system had installed, and capable of working on any system. Here, Docker and Kubernetes are clearly popular choices.
And now the serverless compute – the basic logic and base of serverless setup are, that its business logic is implemented as functions and events.
Why use serverless computing?
Serverless computing has a clear edge over traditional cloud-based or server-centric infrastructure. For developers, serverless architectures offer superior scalability, flexibility, and faster time to release, all at a reduced cost.
Serverless architectures eliminate the redundancy of purchasing, provisioning, and managing backend servers which is a real help for developers.
Zero server management –
The vendors manage everything, freeing up developers, eliminating the devops investment costs and avoiding constraints of server capacity.
Developers will only be charged for server space they use
It works in a ‘pay-as-you-go’ model. Developers will be only charged for what they use.
As to the code, it only runs when the backend functions are needed by the serverless application, and then the code automatically gets scaled up as and when required.
Greater scalability
Unlike with traditional servers, applications that are built with a serverless infrastructure will automatically scale up as the user base grows or the usage increases.
Faster deployments and updates
Here developers can quickly upload the pieces of code and get faster results and release new products. Due to its multi-functionality, developers can upload the code all at once since the application is not a monolithic stack but rather a collection 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 travel all the way to the original server. The code can be run from anywhere.
Gartner estimates that by 2020, 20% of the world’s organizations will have gone serverless.
Serverless computing accelerates speed of development, automatic scaling and significantly lowers runtime costs
Artificial intelligence-based innovation
As more companies transition to cloud-based PaaS, more public cloud companies have started to invest in acquiring or building serverless components that have pre-built unit functionality. These off the shelf tools help companies to test, iterate new concepts without having to take high risk or expenditure.
With the democratization of AI which results in a reduction of time, money and resources to get started, even startups or small teams within huge companies have access to cloud-based, prepackaged algorithms offering different AI models that can speed up innovation.
Demystifying the innovator's dilemma
With today’s cloud computing capabilities, you can develop your idea without a huge budget or a big team. The cloud facilitates innovation not only from a technology point of view but also from a business and market validation point of view whilst facilitating faster iterations.
Now businesses can roll out proof of concepts (testing with select focus groups and iteration) within 3 to 5 months thanks to cloud computing. If your product looks viable, it will be ready for market release and if the product fails for some reason, it still would not have cost you a bomb.
Harnessing a growth mindset - Innominds' perspective
Serverless cloud computing has made innovation more affordable and accessible to businesses of all sizes and shapes. The founding steps that we need, already exist in the serverless cloud; we really don’t need to spend our time and resources creating them. All we need to do is find out how to leverage them in ways to benefit the businesses and our customers.
Innominds’ expertise in NLP, cognitive analytics and serverless cloud computing and product engineering expertise has helped in building machine learning and AI environments quickly. We build upon existing algorithms rather than starting from scratch. This level of agility in data science innovation would be almost impossible to achieve without serverless cloud components.
Innominds holds deep technology expertise in cloud engineering. Our range of cloud engineering services includes cloud migrations, building cloud native environments, serverless architectures, preparing cloud-ready assessments, multi and hybrid cloud management, design and deployment and extending 24/7 cloud support. Our Remote-First cloud solutions and accelerators such as iMigrate™ which speed up the cloud migration process, provide businesses with much-needed agility and speed, delivering high-quality software, digital products and services in a lot lesser time.
