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Serverless = new name for PaaS. VPS (virtual private servers) were available (and largely ignored) for quite a while before 2006, when AWS came along with the

by gmazza 10y ago

Serverless = new name for PaaS. VPS (virtual private servers) were available (and largely ignored) for quite a while before 2006, when AWS came along with the catchy word "cloud". This single word changed everything. Same technology all of the sudden became cool, and everybody started using it. Maybe now it is the turn of PaaS [1] - call it "serverless" and folks finally start seeing all the benefits (true scalability, efficient resource utilization, timely and painless software upgrades, et c.)? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platform_as_a_service

andreasklinger 10y ago
Might get this wrong but from my understanding: PaaS: Platform (as in Server eg used for API) on demand (as in api.something.com/*) FaaS: Function (as in eg api endpoint) on demand (as in api.something.com/v1/get_latest_posts) Of course you can create the 2nd with the approaches of the 1st but the from my understanding the main benefit is that you dont have to - as in: you can just take one endpoint and have it managed by something else.
- icebraining 10y ago
  Yes, you could simply upload some code to the service, and they will be called only when there's a request to that particular code, instead of running a process continuously. It's called "shared hosting" and was invented in the 90s.
  - jaegerpicker 10y ago
    It's fundamentally different than that. This is a discreet function as a single function call that is deployed with no other code that you have written. This allows deployments of individual functions without affecting the rest of the services. While possible before almost noone actually did that.
    - icebraining 10y ago
      I disagree, it was a common pattern to have a single .php file for each page, independent from each other, which would receive input params (GET, POST and COOKIE), sometimes connect to the database, and do all the processing inline, outputting the result. The whole file was essentially an implicit function. The appearance of frameworks with a single entrypoint and which load models and controllers and such is fairly recent in the PHP world. When I started writing websites, already in the 2000s, this was how I first learned.
osipov 10y ago
Since serverless is a kind of a PaaS, it offers many of the same benefits. However, unlike Heroku, Cloud Foundry, OpenShift, and other traditional PaaSes focused on supporting long running applications and services, serverless frameworks offer a new kind of a platform for running short lived processes and functions, also called microflows. The distinction between the long running processes and microflows is subtle but important. When started, long running processes wait for an input, execute some code when an input is received, and then continue waiting. In contrast, microflows are started once an input is received, and are terminated by the platform after the code in the microflow finishes executing. One way to describe microflows is to say that they are reactive, in the sense that they react to the incoming data.
- atrudeau 10y ago
  Sounds like inet.d, or CGI behind a webserver.
  - gmazza 10y ago
    ...or socket-activated systemd service [1, 2] [1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers... [2] https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/03/docker-systemd-socket-activation/ https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/03/docker-systemd-...
    - osipov 10y ago
      That's true, but for a public cloud service, you wouldn't let random people run arbitrary code based purely on inet.d or systemd socket activation.
      - gmazza 10y ago
        Why not? RedHat will let you run arbitrary binaries just fine on OpenShift - both long-running/worker/"PaaS" and on-demand/per-request/"FaaS". Obviously this is tightly locked down with cgroups.
mikebroberts 10y ago
The latest installment just went live - conveniently I offer a comparison to PaaS in it (in that I think there are significant differences between PaaS and FaaS)
- osipov 10y ago
  Thanks for the article, it was a good read. My problem with the FaaS nomenclature is that it positions serverless as different from PaaS while the two are more alike than different. Now, we need to be careful about the definition of PaaS because there are at least two: 1) PaaS as a cloud computing service model, and 2) PaaS as empirically defined by various PaaSes, like Heroku, Cloud Foundry, OpenShift, etc. In my opinion, serverless is a kind of a PaaS per definition 1 above. However, in practice serverless is different from PaaS in the definition 2, because Heroku and others have focused on long running services. In contrast, serverless does not replace the need for long running services but works with them. The sweet spot for serverless are short lived, stateless functions, FaaS per your definition. I like to call them microflows to highlight the complementary relationship to the microservices.
SpaceCadetJones 10y ago
I'm confused, how does "serverless" play into this? I opened this expecting something about p2p architecture
- brianwawok 10y ago
  You don't run the server so I guess you can pretend it doesn't exist. Kinda like s3... it involves servers, but you don't have to do anything. Its just a black box you put in or get out data. "Serverless" FaaS is just a place you park some code and it runs. Yes the name is kinda dumb.

by gmazza 10y ago

andreasklinger 10y ago

Might get this wrong but from my understanding: PaaS: Platform (as in Server eg used for API) on demand (as in api.something.com/*) FaaS: Function (as in eg api endpoint) on demand (as in api.something.com/v1/get_latest_posts) Of course you can create the 2nd with the approaches of the 1st but the from my understanding the main benefit is that you dont have to - as in: you can just take one endpoint and have it managed by something else.

icebraining 10y ago
Yes, you could simply upload some code to the service, and they will be called only when there's a request to that particular code, instead of running a process continuously. It's called "shared hosting" and was invented in the 90s.
- jaegerpicker 10y ago
  It's fundamentally different than that. This is a discreet function as a single function call that is deployed with no other code that you have written. This allows deployments of individual functions without affecting the rest of the services. While possible before almost noone actually did that.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    I disagree, it was a common pattern to have a single .php file for each page, independent from each other, which would receive input params (GET, POST and COOKIE), sometimes connect to the database, and do all the processing inline, outputting the result. The whole file was essentially an implicit function. The appearance of frameworks with a single entrypoint and which load models and controllers and such is fairly recent in the PHP world. When I started writing websites, already in the 2000s, this was how I first learned.

osipov 10y ago

Since serverless is a kind of a PaaS, it offers many of the same benefits. However, unlike Heroku, Cloud Foundry, OpenShift, and other traditional PaaSes focused on supporting long running applications and services, serverless frameworks offer a new kind of a platform for running short lived processes and functions, also called microflows. The distinction between the long running processes and microflows is subtle but important. When started, long running processes wait for an input, execute some code when an input is received, and then continue waiting. In contrast, microflows are started once an input is received, and are terminated by the platform after the code in the microflow finishes executing. One way to describe microflows is to say that they are reactive, in the sense that they react to the incoming data.

atrudeau 10y ago
Sounds like inet.d, or CGI behind a webserver.
- gmazza 10y ago
  ...or socket-activated systemd service [1, 2] [1] http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers.html http://0pointer.de/blog/projects/socket-activated-containers... [2] https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/03/docker-systemd-socket-activation/ https://developer.atlassian.com/blog/2015/03/docker-systemd-...
  - osipov 10y ago
    That's true, but for a public cloud service, you wouldn't let random people run arbitrary code based purely on inet.d or systemd socket activation.
    - gmazza 10y ago
      Why not? RedHat will let you run arbitrary binaries just fine on OpenShift - both long-running/worker/"PaaS" and on-demand/per-request/"FaaS". Obviously this is tightly locked down with cgroups.

mikebroberts 10y ago

The latest installment just went live - conveniently I offer a comparison to PaaS in it (in that I think there are significant differences between PaaS and FaaS)

osipov 10y ago
Thanks for the article, it was a good read. My problem with the FaaS nomenclature is that it positions serverless as different from PaaS while the two are more alike than different. Now, we need to be careful about the definition of PaaS because there are at least two: 1) PaaS as a cloud computing service model, and 2) PaaS as empirically defined by various PaaSes, like Heroku, Cloud Foundry, OpenShift, etc. In my opinion, serverless is a kind of a PaaS per definition 1 above. However, in practice serverless is different from PaaS in the definition 2, because Heroku and others have focused on long running services. In contrast, serverless does not replace the need for long running services but works with them. The sweet spot for serverless are short lived, stateless functions, FaaS per your definition. I like to call them microflows to highlight the complementary relationship to the microservices.

SpaceCadetJones 10y ago

I'm confused, how does "serverless" play into this? I opened this expecting something about p2p architecture

brianwawok 10y ago
You don't run the server so I guess you can pretend it doesn't exist. Kinda like s3... it involves servers, but you don't have to do anything. Its just a black box you put in or get out data. "Serverless" FaaS is just a place you park some code and it runs. Yes the name is kinda dumb.