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Also a fan and user of Timescale, and I hate the serverless phase. I'm pretty sure everyone is pushing it so they can make money from SaS. But if this allows

Also a fan and user of Timescale, and I hate the serverless phase. I'm pretty sure everyone is pushing it so they can make money from SaS. But if this allows them to give it away for free, then I'm all for it ( just won't be using it ).

mfreed 5y ago
I'm the author of the blog post, and I can also say that I'm not thrilled from the serverless phrase either. It's turtles all the way down =) But for better or worse, it seems like the industry has adopted it. So, we're trying to explain actually how our vision is different. In that we don't want to hide developers completely from their services behind these black-box abstractions. But provide something that's similarly easy and scalable (and automated), but allow developers greater control, flexibility, and understanding when they want it.
- qorrect 5y ago
  Doh, guess I should have read the article ;).
- tofuahdude 5y ago
  The best way to be different is to be different. Don't even say serverless at all. You're falling into the trap of being like everyone else.
akulkarni 5y ago
(Timescale co-founder) I also used to hate the phrase. But now I get it. And it's not about marketing, but about the idea that the developers _doesn't shouldn't have to worry about the server_. For example, when you run a DB on a classic DBaaS, you have to worry about CPU, memory, storage provisioning. But when you use a classic SaaS service (e.g., Stripe, Twilio), you don't think about servers at all - but rather just how much you are consuming. The Serverless model for databases is aiming to apply a SaaS like experience but for DBaaS. Where you don't need to think about provisioning, but about consumption. What we (try to) do in this article is to push beyond that serverless paradigm. We believe there are real drawbacks to the "serverless black box" architecture that the industry is building, and what (we believe) developers need (including ourselves) is a more a "transparent box." Hope this helps. But "serverless" also feels a little like "horseless carriages". I suspect in 5 years we'll have a better term that describes this concept for what it _is_, not what it _isn't_.
- Scarbutt 5y ago
  With timescale you still have to deal and think about database connections, nodes and what not. IMO, a truly serverless database is something like dynamodb which just gives you an HTTP endpoint and they take care of the rest.
  - avthar 5y ago
    The point of the blog post is that Timescale cloud isn't totally "serverless", because for some 20% of use cases, you do want to think about nodes and other database internals. From the blog post: "So today’s serverless data platforms are not familiar or flexible. But further, black boxes are never truly easy and worry free: you never know if there are any skeletons lurking in the proverbial closet, just waiting to cause your service to fall over." (Timescale employee here)
- tofuahdude 5y ago
  FWIW you guys are losing me in your sales pitch here. I am looking for technical products and I interpret "serverless" as marketing garbage, not as "I dont have to worry about the server". Call it managed DB as a service and you're more honest in your product offering. You're suffering marketing-speak in lieu of honesty for a technical product - bad plan, imo.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    I am an engineer and to me "serverless" means I don't pay money when I'm not using it. Which I like.
    - zinclozenge 5y ago
      I made another comment to this point, but I think you described it much more succinctly.
    - errwhat 5y ago
      I think you still pay with Timescale both in terms of committed capacity, and when you pause it, although the pitch and docs are all over the shop at the moment.

mfreed 5y ago

I'm the author of the blog post, and I can also say that I'm not thrilled from the serverless phrase either. It's turtles all the way down =) But for better or worse, it seems like the industry has adopted it. So, we're trying to explain actually how our vision is different. In that we don't want to hide developers completely from their services behind these black-box abstractions. But provide something that's similarly easy and scalable (and automated), but allow developers greater control, flexibility, and understanding when they want it.

qorrect 5y ago
Doh, guess I should have read the article ;).
tofuahdude 5y ago
The best way to be different is to be different. Don't even say serverless at all. You're falling into the trap of being like everyone else.

akulkarni 5y ago

(Timescale co-founder) I also used to hate the phrase. But now I get it. And it's not about marketing, but about the idea that the developers _doesn't shouldn't have to worry about the server_. For example, when you run a DB on a classic DBaaS, you have to worry about CPU, memory, storage provisioning. But when you use a classic SaaS service (e.g., Stripe, Twilio), you don't think about servers at all - but rather just how much you are consuming. The Serverless model for databases is aiming to apply a SaaS like experience but for DBaaS. Where you don't need to think about provisioning, but about consumption. What we (try to) do in this article is to push beyond that serverless paradigm. We believe there are real drawbacks to the "serverless black box" architecture that the industry is building, and what (we believe) developers need (including ourselves) is a more a "transparent box." Hope this helps. But "serverless" also feels a little like "horseless carriages". I suspect in 5 years we'll have a better term that describes this concept for what it _is_, not what it _isn't_.

Scarbutt 5y ago
With timescale you still have to deal and think about database connections, nodes and what not. IMO, a truly serverless database is something like dynamodb which just gives you an HTTP endpoint and they take care of the rest.
- avthar 5y ago
  The point of the blog post is that Timescale cloud isn't totally "serverless", because for some 20% of use cases, you do want to think about nodes and other database internals. From the blog post: "So today’s serverless data platforms are not familiar or flexible. But further, black boxes are never truly easy and worry free: you never know if there are any skeletons lurking in the proverbial closet, just waiting to cause your service to fall over." (Timescale employee here)
tofuahdude 5y ago
FWIW you guys are losing me in your sales pitch here. I am looking for technical products and I interpret "serverless" as marketing garbage, not as "I dont have to worry about the server". Call it managed DB as a service and you're more honest in your product offering. You're suffering marketing-speak in lieu of honesty for a technical product - bad plan, imo.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  I am an engineer and to me "serverless" means I don't pay money when I'm not using it. Which I like.
  - zinclozenge 5y ago
    I made another comment to this point, but I think you described it much more succinctly.
  - errwhat 5y ago
    I think you still pay with Timescale both in terms of committed capacity, and when you pause it, although the pitch and docs are all over the shop at the moment.