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> Container and serverless platforms introduce additional complexity that the teams building and operating these cloud-based systems must deal with. This is bi

by jupp0r 3y ago

> Container and serverless platforms introduce additional complexity that the teams building and operating these cloud-based systems must deal with. This is bizarre. Cloud functions are really the easiest way to deploy code to the internet. Compare that with the other extreme of building a house to host physical servers, hiring staff to maintain them, picking hardware and operating systems, creating procurement and maintenance procedures to keep both up to date. You have to deal with considerable amounts of HVAC design, hiring contractors, etc. On the other side, people can just write a few lines of Terraform, swipe a company credit card and deploy to millions of users. Not all technology is complicated.

SahAssar 3y ago
You're conflating complex and hard. Cloud functions might be easy, but they are also complex, and there are definitely specifics you need to keep in mind when developing them.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  There's a lot of complexity in the stack that makes a web server run. Nobody would suggest designing their own chips to do so. People insist that cloud computing is adding complexity when it often is a useful abstraction that allows companies to concentrate on the stuff that provides business value vs having to deal with lower levels of the stack.
- nailer 3y ago
  The sibling post already makes the same point, but I absolutely agree that serverless is specifically less complex than maintaining state for monolithic applications. Individually deploying endpoints in seconds is hugely beneficial. Likewise functional purity is easier to reason about.
tiew9Vii 3y ago
I find the actual deployment with cloudfunctions easy as you say. The complexity is the orchestration, the architecture, the hard vendor limitations, having to deal with being a distributed system. Having a FAAS service makes the deployment easy but development wise a traditional monolith deployed on static servers can be far simpler to deal with. I use FAAS (Lambda's /cloudflare functions) a lot for pet projects as it costs me fractions of a cent to host. The architecture is quite complex being distributed, dealing with restrictions, eventual concurrency etc etc. I find it enjoyable making things work in these systems basically for free but if these projects where a business with paying customers, alot of the stuff I'd drop from FAAS and deploy on static VPS servers as architecture is so much easier meaning I'm much more productive. With paying customers I can take the additional cost of a few VPS's or dedicated hosts such as Hetzner. The FAAS wouldn't outweigh the productivity gains.
bob1029 3y ago
> Cloud functions are really the easiest way to deploy code to the internet. I have to agree. Anyone who wants to see what the SoTA UX looks like should go try an Azure Function Quick Start guide (preferably v4/C#), use Github and just "let it happen". I watched my project manager set up the CI/CD pipeline by clicking 1 button, confirming GH org, and setting 3 DDLs. It's all done now. We push code and it goes live. Someone set up a custom domain with 2 extra DNS records and 3 clicks in the portal. No TLS certs to manage. It's all just handled. Anyone who is complaining about this stuff being hard or broken in 2023 is doing the intentional stick-in-bike-wheel meme. I found the experience to be so simple & robust that I insisted on it being the only experience we have moving forward. You can really build anything directly on top of an HTTP trigger function if you are clever enough and are willing/able to step outside of certain "norms". From an audit & compliance perspective, I don't see how the word "complexity" would be permitted to enter the lexicon. That is, unless we are talking about the complexity faced by your cloud vendor's compliance team. One massive advantage with serverless platforms is that - ostensibly - there is no sever. This eliminates entire libraries of audit items from your side of the fence.

by jupp0r 3y ago

SahAssar 3y ago

You're conflating complex and hard. Cloud functions might be easy, but they are also complex, and there are definitely specifics you need to keep in mind when developing them.

jupp0r 3y ago
There's a lot of complexity in the stack that makes a web server run. Nobody would suggest designing their own chips to do so. People insist that cloud computing is adding complexity when it often is a useful abstraction that allows companies to concentrate on the stuff that provides business value vs having to deal with lower levels of the stack.
nailer 3y ago
The sibling post already makes the same point, but I absolutely agree that serverless is specifically less complex than maintaining state for monolithic applications. Individually deploying endpoints in seconds is hugely beneficial. Likewise functional purity is easier to reason about.

tiew9Vii 3y ago

I find the actual deployment with cloudfunctions easy as you say. The complexity is the orchestration, the architecture, the hard vendor limitations, having to deal with being a distributed system. Having a FAAS service makes the deployment easy but development wise a traditional monolith deployed on static servers can be far simpler to deal with. I use FAAS (Lambda's /cloudflare functions) a lot for pet projects as it costs me fractions of a cent to host. The architecture is quite complex being distributed, dealing with restrictions, eventual concurrency etc etc. I find it enjoyable making things work in these systems basically for free but if these projects where a business with paying customers, alot of the stuff I'd drop from FAAS and deploy on static VPS servers as architecture is so much easier meaning I'm much more productive. With paying customers I can take the additional cost of a few VPS's or dedicated hosts such as Hetzner. The FAAS wouldn't outweigh the productivity gains.

bob1029 3y ago

> Cloud functions are really the easiest way to deploy code to the internet. I have to agree. Anyone who wants to see what the SoTA UX looks like should go try an Azure Function Quick Start guide (preferably v4/C#), use Github and just "let it happen". I watched my project manager set up the CI/CD pipeline by clicking 1 button, confirming GH org, and setting 3 DDLs. It's all done now. We push code and it goes live. Someone set up a custom domain with 2 extra DNS records and 3 clicks in the portal. No TLS certs to manage. It's all just handled. Anyone who is complaining about this stuff being hard or broken in 2023 is doing the intentional stick-in-bike-wheel meme. I found the experience to be so simple & robust that I insisted on it being the only experience we have moving forward. You can really build anything directly on top of an HTTP trigger function if you are clever enough and are willing/able to step outside of certain "norms". From an audit & compliance perspective, I don't see how the word "complexity" would be permitted to enter the lexicon. That is, unless we are talking about the complexity faced by your cloud vendor's compliance team. One massive advantage with serverless platforms is that - ostensibly - there is no sever. This eliminates entire libraries of audit items from your side of the fence.