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While the article is a bit informative, it is hard to take it seriously. It claims to bring "serverless" to a webpage near you, yet one of its prerequisites is:

While the article is a bit informative, it is hard to take it seriously. It claims to bring "serverless" to a webpage near you, yet one of its prerequisites is: "You need to have a Kubernetes cluster up & running.", which implies a server (actually several), so not so "serverless" in the end. The entire "serverless" movement seems to preach something that is impossible. You can't have internet without a server. You can offload server management and maintenance onto a provider, that is true, but you can't remove it entirely from your stack. So preaching "serverless" architecture is disingenuous and IMHO rather ignorant.

aivisol 7y ago
I believe "serverless" in a way how it is used in this context means there is no top down full server starting from hardware all the way up to the OS available to you exclusively. Instead you just use services which you need for tasks you need. Think storage buckets for your files, lambda functions for your scripts, load balancers for your traffic etc. They do run on servers, but you never have access to the server itself.
- dx034 7y ago
  Isn't that what webhosting providers have offered for at least a decade? No server management, just resources on a server with a web server, data storage (often MySQL) and the ability to execute code (mostly PHP). You run your software on a server without ever accessing the server itself or having to worry about OS updates.
  - zzh8829 7y ago
    I think the biggest difference is webhosting provider can't scale your php resource up and down infinitely in real time. Your software is not exposed to the server but constrained by it. The idea of serverless is that your service is automatically distributed and not constrained by the capability of some web server.
    - duhast 7y ago
      Infinitely?
    - ninegunpi 7y ago
      To scale shipping static content, I'd rather look into CDN with proper caching, instead of maintaining ten layers of abstraction just to feel good about how modern my stack is.
      - icebraining 7y ago
        Yes, but what about non-static? Also, a CDN would also classify as "serverless", under the definition used by the article.
- alexellisuk 7y ago
  I would echo this. Believe it or not, AWS also run many many servers to power Lambda :-) Not every term in computing is literal. Think about "the cloud" - is it really in the sky? Of course not and Serverless like aivisol is rightly pointing out is an approach and architecture. To the developer, it's "serverless" when they don't have to care about infrastructure. So if you're using OpenFaaS Cloud or AWS Lambda, as a developer you literally don't have to care.
- guiriduro 7y ago
  I think OP is quite aware of the distinction, yet I would also argue that 'serverless' doesn't apply to having to manage a Kubernetes cluster (on servers.) If you are only exposed at the services level - whether they are provided directly by your cloud provider, and whether or not those FaaS & buckets are implemented with k8s hidden from you, then you can use 'serverless', but not if part of the requirement is to manage that k8s stack yourself - and that includes provisioning so-called FaaS on the cluster. "Serverless" it decidedly is not.
rubenbe 7y ago
I personally prefer the naam FAAS. It's a logical naming scheme where each xAAS moves the maintenance of an increasing part of the tech stack to your supplier. PAAS > SAAS > FAAS
alexellisuk 7y ago
Hi born2discover, I'm the founder and lead of OpenFaaS. Over in the community, we and many others such as Google, IBM, Red Hat believe that "serverless" is an architectural pattern and approach rather than a literal term. I'd encourage you to checkout my video on Serverless 2.0 which draws out some of the issues with "Serverless 1.0" (which I think you are describing) In 2019, serverless is not about SaaS products anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXm-oHi5Mg&list=PLlIapFDp305AiwA17mUNtgi5-u23eHm5j&index=16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXm-oHi5Mg&list=PLlIapFDp30...
- shifto 7y ago
  > "serverless" is an architectural pattern Ah, a marketing term.
  - alexellisuk 7y ago
    https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html
- octopoc 7y ago
  Thank you so much for your work! OpenFaaS is an awesome framework.
zzh8829 7y ago
I agree the kubernetes part in the article is an overkill, but the serverless movement is here to stay. I used to be a serverless skeptic like you. However, after playing around with "serverless"[1] and AWS CDK[2], I truly believe serverless architecture is not only possible but preferred in many real use cases. For example, API powered by traditional web cserver + database can be replaced with lambda/function + dynamo/s3/firestore. Cron jobs can be replaced by cloud scheduler + lambda/fargate/cloud run. As a serverless user, you really don't interact with "servers", but instead a highly-available and scalable managed task execution environment. The only downside is each layer of compute abstraction comes at the cost of spending more and more money. [1] https://github.com/serverless/serverless https://github.com/serverless/serverless [2] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/latest/guide/home.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/latest/guide/home.html
- collyw 7y ago
  And when you want to change from AWS, you are completely locked in, no?
  - octopoc 7y ago
    If you use one of the open serverless frameworks such as OpenFaaS (which is what this article is about) then no you're not locked in. BTW my team has investigated OpenFaaS to be able to share code between the cloud and local installations, and if we do OpenFaaS looks promising. The architecture is well documented and makes sense.
    - windexh8er 7y ago
      Using OpenFaaS on AWS doesn't exactly alleviate all of the lock-in. It locks you in to a larger spend. This is because OpenFaaS is heavily dependent on, generally, a k8s cluster that is going to be chewing through bill time 24/7. I think that's the trade-off: you pay to not be locked into Lambda. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing, but I've seen plenty of times where customers would balk because their initial serverless trials cost $5, $10, $15 a month but when running something that would be better for them longer term it would initially be 4-8x that in opex. So they go the "easier" (cheaper) path and build everything around that lock-in tooling.
gnur 7y ago
It's not about the actual full stack being without servers, it's about the end user not having to deal with anything related to servers. It's just a step further then running instances with any cloud provider. There is still physical machinery in the stack, but you don't have to worry about it anymore. Even if you don't agree with the definition, it is how it is used by most of the people in IT roles currently, so you'd probably have to learn to deal with it.
antisemiotic 7y ago
What do you think about "fabless" semiconductor companies, then?
TickleSteve 7y ago
Its "serverless" with respect to management of servers... ...not actually without server hardware.
softwarelimits 7y ago
"selfhosted serverless" will change everything!

aivisol 7y ago

I believe "serverless" in a way how it is used in this context means there is no top down full server starting from hardware all the way up to the OS available to you exclusively. Instead you just use services which you need for tasks you need. Think storage buckets for your files, lambda functions for your scripts, load balancers for your traffic etc. They do run on servers, but you never have access to the server itself.

dx034 7y ago
Isn't that what webhosting providers have offered for at least a decade? No server management, just resources on a server with a web server, data storage (often MySQL) and the ability to execute code (mostly PHP). You run your software on a server without ever accessing the server itself or having to worry about OS updates.
- zzh8829 7y ago
  I think the biggest difference is webhosting provider can't scale your php resource up and down infinitely in real time. Your software is not exposed to the server but constrained by it. The idea of serverless is that your service is automatically distributed and not constrained by the capability of some web server.
  - duhast 7y ago
    Infinitely?
  - ninegunpi 7y ago
    To scale shipping static content, I'd rather look into CDN with proper caching, instead of maintaining ten layers of abstraction just to feel good about how modern my stack is.
    - icebraining 7y ago
      Yes, but what about non-static? Also, a CDN would also classify as "serverless", under the definition used by the article.
alexellisuk 7y ago
I would echo this. Believe it or not, AWS also run many many servers to power Lambda :-) Not every term in computing is literal. Think about "the cloud" - is it really in the sky? Of course not and Serverless like aivisol is rightly pointing out is an approach and architecture. To the developer, it's "serverless" when they don't have to care about infrastructure. So if you're using OpenFaaS Cloud or AWS Lambda, as a developer you literally don't have to care.
guiriduro 7y ago
I think OP is quite aware of the distinction, yet I would also argue that 'serverless' doesn't apply to having to manage a Kubernetes cluster (on servers.) If you are only exposed at the services level - whether they are provided directly by your cloud provider, and whether or not those FaaS & buckets are implemented with k8s hidden from you, then you can use 'serverless', but not if part of the requirement is to manage that k8s stack yourself - and that includes provisioning so-called FaaS on the cluster. "Serverless" it decidedly is not.

rubenbe 7y ago

I personally prefer the naam FAAS. It's a logical naming scheme where each xAAS moves the maintenance of an increasing part of the tech stack to your supplier. PAAS > SAAS > FAAS

alexellisuk 7y ago

Hi born2discover, I'm the founder and lead of OpenFaaS. Over in the community, we and many others such as Google, IBM, Red Hat believe that "serverless" is an architectural pattern and approach rather than a literal term. I'd encourage you to checkout my video on Serverless 2.0 which draws out some of the issues with "Serverless 1.0" (which I think you are describing) In 2019, serverless is not about SaaS products anymore. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXm-oHi5Mg&list=PLlIapFDp305AiwA17mUNtgi5-u23eHm5j&index=16 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvXm-oHi5Mg&list=PLlIapFDp30...

shifto 7y ago
> "serverless" is an architectural pattern Ah, a marketing term.
- alexellisuk 7y ago
  https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html https://martinfowler.com/articles/serverless.html
octopoc 7y ago
Thank you so much for your work! OpenFaaS is an awesome framework.

zzh8829 7y ago

I agree the kubernetes part in the article is an overkill, but the serverless movement is here to stay. I used to be a serverless skeptic like you. However, after playing around with "serverless"[1] and AWS CDK[2], I truly believe serverless architecture is not only possible but preferred in many real use cases. For example, API powered by traditional web cserver + database can be replaced with lambda/function + dynamo/s3/firestore. Cron jobs can be replaced by cloud scheduler + lambda/fargate/cloud run. As a serverless user, you really don't interact with "servers", but instead a highly-available and scalable managed task execution environment. The only downside is each layer of compute abstraction comes at the cost of spending more and more money. [1] https://github.com/serverless/serverless https://github.com/serverless/serverless [2] https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/latest/guide/home.html https://docs.aws.amazon.com/cdk/latest/guide/home.html

collyw 7y ago
And when you want to change from AWS, you are completely locked in, no?
- octopoc 7y ago
  If you use one of the open serverless frameworks such as OpenFaaS (which is what this article is about) then no you're not locked in. BTW my team has investigated OpenFaaS to be able to share code between the cloud and local installations, and if we do OpenFaaS looks promising. The architecture is well documented and makes sense.
  - windexh8er 7y ago
    Using OpenFaaS on AWS doesn't exactly alleviate all of the lock-in. It locks you in to a larger spend. This is because OpenFaaS is heavily dependent on, generally, a k8s cluster that is going to be chewing through bill time 24/7. I think that's the trade-off: you pay to not be locked into Lambda. Personally I don't think that's a bad thing, but I've seen plenty of times where customers would balk because their initial serverless trials cost $5, $10, $15 a month but when running something that would be better for them longer term it would initially be 4-8x that in opex. So they go the "easier" (cheaper) path and build everything around that lock-in tooling.

gnur 7y ago

It's not about the actual full stack being without servers, it's about the end user not having to deal with anything related to servers. It's just a step further then running instances with any cloud provider. There is still physical machinery in the stack, but you don't have to worry about it anymore. Even if you don't agree with the definition, it is how it is used by most of the people in IT roles currently, so you'd probably have to learn to deal with it.

antisemiotic 7y ago

What do you think about "fabless" semiconductor companies, then?

TickleSteve 7y ago

Its "serverless" with respect to management of servers... ...not actually without server hardware.

softwarelimits 7y ago

"selfhosted serverless" will change everything!