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"Serverless" here refers to not needing a pre-requisitioned server to exist in advance of the request. Sure, the physical hardware exists in AWS, but previously

by btown 10y ago

"Serverless" here refers to not needing a pre-requisitioned server to exist in advance of the request. Sure, the physical hardware exists in AWS, but previously you'd need to have some sort of CI system running on a server that needs to be running and accepting web requests at any time that you might push to Github. With AWS Lambda, which LambCI is run on, a lightweight server boots up in realtime in response to that webhook, runs code, and shuts down. So you have a CI server that can respond any time of the day or night, but only consumes resources when it's actually running.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 10y ago
Serverless is a fairly new and content-free buzzword specific to lambda. To the extent it is sometimes rationalized as communicating something meaningful, it's not something distinct from what almost every PaaS ever has always provided. (Lambda is distinct from earlier PaaS's, and other solutions which mimic Lambda have emerged, but the way in which they are distinct from most earlier PaaS offerings isn't part of how people try to rationalize "serverless" and wouldn't really fit into such a rationalization.
inopinatus 10y ago
Serverless also describes the application invocation model. The design intention for serverless applications uses pub-sub events rather than client-server calls. That's a major enabler of async processing and containers-on-demand, and it looks like LambCI has followed the pattern to a tee. If you have to accept requests from a non-event-driven world, AWS offer their API Gateway to provide a listening server endpoint, but I think it's telling that this was not available when Lambda was released, and that LambCI does not need it.
oneplane 10y ago
The point I was trying to make is that it seems like people don't want to make actual services or servers, but rather depend on some sort of closed loop or ecosystem elsewhere, and if you happen to not use that, you can't use the nice stuff they put up on GitHub.

by btown 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 10y ago

Serverless is a fairly new and content-free buzzword specific to lambda. To the extent it is sometimes rationalized as communicating something meaningful, it's not something distinct from what almost every PaaS ever has always provided. (Lambda is distinct from earlier PaaS's, and other solutions which mimic Lambda have emerged, but the way in which they are distinct from most earlier PaaS offerings isn't part of how people try to rationalize "serverless" and wouldn't really fit into such a rationalization.

inopinatus 10y ago

Serverless also describes the application invocation model. The design intention for serverless applications uses pub-sub events rather than client-server calls. That's a major enabler of async processing and containers-on-demand, and it looks like LambCI has followed the pattern to a tee. If you have to accept requests from a non-event-driven world, AWS offer their API Gateway to provide a listening server endpoint, but I think it's telling that this was not available when Lambda was released, and that LambCI does not need it.

oneplane 10y ago

The point I was trying to make is that it seems like people don't want to make actual services or servers, but rather depend on some sort of closed loop or ecosystem elsewhere, and if you happen to not use that, you can't use the nice stuff they put up on GitHub.