Serverless

[Snarf]

I thought I’d heard it all with bulltulip bingo words but it seems the new trend in my area is “Serverless” which is effectively just outsourcing your hardware and apps to a 3rd party running a cloud (e.g Amazon).

However, because it says “serverless” then all middle/upper management think it will mean less costs and keep suggesting this as a solution to everything.

Anyone else notice this trend?

Ive been invited to an event discussing the way forward with serverless architecture next week in Manchester - its free so I think Im going if only to ask what they think is going on "in the cloud"

[darmstadt]

It's just another buzzword for clueless management to put into plans and reports. This came up in a webcast last year I had with a large SW/HW corporation and even the employees were laughing and there were some quite serious discussions being held about it. In the end the actual developers ignored it as regardless of whether you have the server or someone else hosts it for you, there is still going to be a server there. Management continue to use it...

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-comp...ure-openwhisk/

[squarepeg]

It's just another buzzword for clueless management to put into plans and reports. This came up in a webcast last year I had with a large SW/HW corporation and even the employees were laughing and there were some quite serious discussions being held about it. In the end the actual developers ignored it as regardless of whether you have the server or someone else hosts it for you, there is still going to be a server there. Management continue to use it...

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-comp...ure-openwhisk/

I'd say it's the writing on the wall for a lot of Ops/DevOps.

[Mordac]

Serverless simply means you don't own your own critical infrastructure but have some sort of contract hire deal on it. Like outsourcing giving away critical business functions. Lunacy when the facilities are critical and hold valuable data and functionality that your business depends on.

I don't get the cost saving angle. Looking at my own micro business it's cheaper for me to have my own server running in a nearby data centre than buy a virtual version. The plus is my own server is multi core, multi TB, v fast everything, dedicated to me and cost <£3K all in including 3 years co-location. That's naff all cost in the grand scheme of things

This. Any company which doesn't own it's critical infrastructure and data deserves everything that could happen to them. It's what I like to call "Head in the Cloud" syndrome. If your cloud provider gets hacked, what's in the contract to protect you? There'll be some small print somewhere which means you're right in the tulip...

[NigelJK]

Being as I put together a totally Azure based end 2 end development cycle, including deployment to an Azure Web farm, specially to circumvent the It department, I'd say their days are numbered.

[tomtomagain]

This. Any company which doesn't own it's critical infrastructure and data deserves everything that could happen to them. It's what I like to call "Head in the Cloud" syndrome. If your cloud provider gets hacked, what's in the contract to protect you? There'll be some small print somewhere which means you're right in the tulip...

So all companies should own their own power-supply? After all, if the leccy goes off, nothing can get done.

[woohoo]

So all companies should own their own power-supply? After all, if the leccy goes off, nothing can get done.

I agree, I've worked with a few small companies and the guy looking after their critical infrastructure is more of a hobbiest and also sorts out the email when he has time. Companies making a few million a year and running their critical apps on ancient hardware. Azure/AWS fits the bill for these guys.

[tomtomagain]

It's just another buzzword for clueless management to put into plans and reports. This came up in a webcast last year I had with a large SW/HW corporation and even the employees were laughing and there were some quite serious discussions being held about it. In the end the actual developers ignored it as regardless of whether you have the server or someone else hosts it for you, there is still going to be a server there. Management continue to use it...

https://www.ibm.com/blogs/cloud-comp...ure-openwhisk/

IT has been, and always will be, full of buzzwords. But I would not right-off Serverless. It's an additional deployment option and in some instances makes perfect sense. In others, it won't.

An example of how I use it.

My SAAS is listed in AppSource. When some when registers an interest in it Microsoft push their details into an Azure Storage Table that I own. My Azure function is notified that the table changes, reads the data, processes it. Ends.

It's worked flawlessly for months and runs about 15 times a day. Costs a few pence a month to run.

Does it run on a server? Well it runs on a computer somewhere. But I have no idea what flavour it is. It might be Windows, it could be UNIX, it could even be some special ".NET Only Machine" I am not exposed to the server, I don't have responsibility for maintaining it. It might all be running on a single box in one of Microsoft Azure DC's, but its most likely running in some sort of distributed, highly resilient Farm. The sort of infrastructure that not even a major FTSE company can afford. Again, I don't know, and I don't care.

I simply wrote my 25 lines of C# and deployed it.

Compared to the more traditional options it's trivial. I'd have to code my 25 lines as before, but then I'd need more "Fluff" around the side, maybe create a REST API, Hook up the notification handlers etc etc.

Then I'd need to deploy onto a VM, which gives me a hosting cost ( About £11 a month for the cheapest option in Azure ), then I've got a server to worry about .... all for a bit of useful code that runs occasionally.

What took me an around an hour to do could easily have taken a day.

[Lance]

Then I'd need to deploy onto a VM, which gives me a hosting cost ( About £11 a month for the cheapest option in Azure ), then I've got a server to worry about .... all for a bit of useful code that runs occasionally.

And the cheapest VMs are sloooooooooow.
The A0 is waste of time. A1 not much better.
A2 works as a single use, low volume server, but costs upwards of £80 a month. Which, now I've just checked and realised, is about to be downgraded to A1 until I need it.

[Mordac]

So all companies should own their own power-supply? After all, if the leccy goes off, nothing can get done.

And that happens almost never. And if you were at risk of such an event, you'd have a UPS backup facility, and generators etc. I've specced out several such plans, the most expensive came out at £600k, and they paid it. Grudgingly, it has to be said. Since nothing has actually gone wrong in the intervening decade, they probably think it's money down the drain, but what if something terrible happened.....?