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Is “serverless” an accepted term now? Seems like usage of the term generally sparks a lot of debate.

by le-mark 5y ago

atlgator 5y ago
There's a misconception that containers are cconsidered "serverless."
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
smiths1999 5y ago
I always thought "serverless" referred to AWS Lambda style services. Recently I saw it used to refer to cloud computing. Is this a common interpretation? It really took me by surprise.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  I've always seen it to mean cases where the code owner is not responsible for designating or managing individual servers, but instead they just deploy their code and the cloud provider is responsible for scaling based on incoming load. In that model things like AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions are considered serverless, but so are Elastic Beanstalk, App Engine and Cloud Run. Managing your own individual servers in something like EC2 or Cloud Compute is definitely something I would not consider serverless, and I think most people would agree with that.
DerekBickerton 5y ago
I never understood the term. 99% of computing is a client talking to some sort of server. Forgoing a server leaves just the client (which I think is what 'serverless' implies)
- probotect0r 5y ago
  It doesn't mean there is no 'server' component. It's supposed to mean that the devs don't have to worry about the underlying server infrastructure that is running their code. They simply specify the code and the conditions under which it gets executed, and the serverless service takes care of running it.
dijit 5y ago
I think the debate is reasonable, "serverless" (just like no-ops) implies that there are no servers (or ops minded folk), the reality is that you're outsourcing the operating system management. For that, I think Functions-as-a-service makes more sense. Or, Containers-as-a-Service if that's your poison.
- CharlesW 5y ago
  > For that, I think Functions-as-a-service makes more sense. For internal documents I've written, I position FaaS as one category of Serverless services (which includes others like Database as a Service (DBaaS), etc.).

Is “serverless” an accepted term now? Seems like usage of the term generally sparks a lot of debate.

atlgator 5y ago

There's a misconception that containers are cconsidered "serverless."

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

smiths1999 5y ago

I always thought "serverless" referred to AWS Lambda style services. Recently I saw it used to refer to cloud computing. Is this a common interpretation? It really took me by surprise.

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
I've always seen it to mean cases where the code owner is not responsible for designating or managing individual servers, but instead they just deploy their code and the cloud provider is responsible for scaling based on incoming load. In that model things like AWS Lambda and Google Cloud Functions are considered serverless, but so are Elastic Beanstalk, App Engine and Cloud Run. Managing your own individual servers in something like EC2 or Cloud Compute is definitely something I would not consider serverless, and I think most people would agree with that.

DerekBickerton 5y ago

I never understood the term. 99% of computing is a client talking to some sort of server. Forgoing a server leaves just the client (which I think is what 'serverless' implies)

probotect0r 5y ago
It doesn't mean there is no 'server' component. It's supposed to mean that the devs don't have to worry about the underlying server infrastructure that is running their code. They simply specify the code and the conditions under which it gets executed, and the serverless service takes care of running it.

dijit 5y ago

I think the debate is reasonable, "serverless" (just like no-ops) implies that there are no servers (or ops minded folk), the reality is that you're outsourcing the operating system management. For that, I think Functions-as-a-service makes more sense. Or, Containers-as-a-Service if that's your poison.

CharlesW 5y ago
> For that, I think Functions-as-a-service makes more sense. For internal documents I've written, I position FaaS as one category of Serverless services (which includes others like Database as a Service (DBaaS), etc.).