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> 'Serverless is an architectural pattern resulting in: Functions as a Service, or FaaS' Then call it FaaS - it's not serverless and that term is misleading, m

> 'Serverless is an architectural pattern resulting in: Functions as a Service, or FaaS' Then call it FaaS - it's not serverless and that term is misleading, marketing bunk. Even the title of the post describes the servers used in it's deployment, I'm quite sick of this term - I don't find it at all helpful when describing application architecture.

alexellisuk 9y ago
It is what it is - and I put a paragraph at the start of the blog for folks who are still confused. It explains that Serverless is a pattern and not a literal term. I even wrote a blog post about it - we've done such a poor job in this industry of explaining it. https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service/ https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service...
- senko 9y ago
  Maybe if a better term is used it wouldn't need so much explaining. To me, "Functions as a Service" is massively more obvious than "Serverless".
  - xupybd 9y ago
    And the cloud would be better as a server somewhere on the internet but terms like this get created because it's easier to sell a one word concept.
    - alexellisuk 9y ago
      Yes... can we all start berating every blog post that uses the word "cloud"? There are no clouds in this server! :-D
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
  - DJHenk 9y ago
    It is not to me. Isn't a 'Function as a service' just a... service? Why not just call it a multi server "Platform for services".
zwischenzug 9y ago
I disagree; I find it very helpful. It's not terribly complicated either - if you are only concerned with code, then your deployment is 'serverless' in the sense that _you are not concerned with servers_. Of course 'servers' are involved; the point is whether that's of concern to your deployment.
- frou_dh 9y ago
  Daemon processes (100% software) also get called "servers". In an old job, in an effort to disambiguate, I would always use "computer" to mean hardware (losing battle).
- icebraining 9y ago
  I'm not sure that distinction is clear. For example, in AWS Lambda, you still have issues like functions being "warm" or not, and people write code specifically to handle that. Meanwhile, nowadays you can acquire and configure even dedicated machines using just code.
  - joseph 9y ago
    If you have to configure a machine, even in code, then you aren't "serverless". To me, serverless means that you do not manage the machines or even have direct access to them.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      What's a machine? :) A dedicated server sure is, but a VPS? An Heroku Dyno? What's the line?
      - monkmartinez 9y ago
        > What's a machine? I would say "machine" means the hardware and/or the operating system of the "server" (which is a fancy word for "computer"). The "and/or" part being very important!
  - 9y ago
bananarepdev 9y ago
I agree with you, to an extent. By the same criteria, some PaaS services could also be considered serverless, but the term does not apply to them. However, since the term evokes the idea of "less infrastructure to manage" and, consequentially, "lower costs", it works well to draw the attention of executives.
stonewhite 9y ago
Exactly, because what can be considered serverless can wildly vary, such as: Google App Engine, Google Big Query , AWS Lambda, AWS Athena The name (which is just a marketing term, not technical) just reflects that you don't deal with servers but with services.
jabzd 9y ago
I consider it "serverless" similar to how "stainless" steel only lessens, but isn't a full 100% guarantee. That makes me feel slightly better about the term, ha.
anotherbrownguy 9y ago
AWS Lambda is "serverless" to customers. You only pay for running the functions, even though Amazon pays for running the underlying architecture which obviously runs on servers.
- yeukhon 9y ago
  Well, the difference between that and running on Elasticbeanstalk would be you choose the sizing while Amazon chooses the sizing for you in Lambda. The reason people seem to advocate FaaS is because Lambda can be viewed as a job sent to queue and then runs based on event criteria (time based or event trigger based). Look at Lambada like writing and calling a job from queue (eg celery). Nothing fancy about serverless.
erikpukinskis 9y ago
> I don't find it at all helpful when describing application architecture. If you can draw the application architecture without anything that is best labeled a server, wouldn't that make it a "serverless" architecture?
avip 9y ago
Even more so confusing as the term "server" is currently pretty meaningless IMO (exhibit one: tiny rpi board is also a server).

alexellisuk 9y ago

It is what it is - and I put a paragraph at the start of the blog for folks who are still confused. It explains that Serverless is a pattern and not a literal term. I even wrote a blog post about it - we've done such a poor job in this industry of explaining it. https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service/ https://blog.alexellis.io/introducing-functions-as-a-service...

senko 9y ago
Maybe if a better term is used it wouldn't need so much explaining. To me, "Functions as a Service" is massively more obvious than "Serverless".
- xupybd 9y ago
  And the cloud would be better as a server somewhere on the internet but terms like this get created because it's easier to sell a one word concept.
  - alexellisuk 9y ago
    Yes... can we all start berating every blog post that uses the word "cloud"? There are no clouds in this server! :-D
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- DJHenk 9y ago
  It is not to me. Isn't a 'Function as a service' just a... service? Why not just call it a multi server "Platform for services".

zwischenzug 9y ago

I disagree; I find it very helpful. It's not terribly complicated either - if you are only concerned with code, then your deployment is 'serverless' in the sense that _you are not concerned with servers_. Of course 'servers' are involved; the point is whether that's of concern to your deployment.

frou_dh 9y ago
Daemon processes (100% software) also get called "servers". In an old job, in an effort to disambiguate, I would always use "computer" to mean hardware (losing battle).
icebraining 9y ago
I'm not sure that distinction is clear. For example, in AWS Lambda, you still have issues like functions being "warm" or not, and people write code specifically to handle that. Meanwhile, nowadays you can acquire and configure even dedicated machines using just code.
- joseph 9y ago
  If you have to configure a machine, even in code, then you aren't "serverless". To me, serverless means that you do not manage the machines or even have direct access to them.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    What's a machine? :) A dedicated server sure is, but a VPS? An Heroku Dyno? What's the line?
    - monkmartinez 9y ago
      > What's a machine? I would say "machine" means the hardware and/or the operating system of the "server" (which is a fancy word for "computer"). The "and/or" part being very important!
- 9y ago

bananarepdev 9y ago

I agree with you, to an extent. By the same criteria, some PaaS services could also be considered serverless, but the term does not apply to them. However, since the term evokes the idea of "less infrastructure to manage" and, consequentially, "lower costs", it works well to draw the attention of executives.

stonewhite 9y ago

Exactly, because what can be considered serverless can wildly vary, such as: Google App Engine, Google Big Query , AWS Lambda, AWS Athena The name (which is just a marketing term, not technical) just reflects that you don't deal with servers but with services.

jabzd 9y ago

I consider it "serverless" similar to how "stainless" steel only lessens, but isn't a full 100% guarantee. That makes me feel slightly better about the term, ha.

anotherbrownguy 9y ago

AWS Lambda is "serverless" to customers. You only pay for running the functions, even though Amazon pays for running the underlying architecture which obviously runs on servers.

yeukhon 9y ago
Well, the difference between that and running on Elasticbeanstalk would be you choose the sizing while Amazon chooses the sizing for you in Lambda. The reason people seem to advocate FaaS is because Lambda can be viewed as a job sent to queue and then runs based on event criteria (time based or event trigger based). Look at Lambada like writing and calling a job from queue (eg celery). Nothing fancy about serverless.

erikpukinskis 9y ago

> I don't find it at all helpful when describing application architecture. If you can draw the application architecture without anything that is best labeled a server, wouldn't that make it a "serverless" architecture?

avip 9y ago

Even more so confusing as the term "server" is currently pretty meaningless IMO (exhibit one: tiny rpi board is also a server).