Serverless Applications: Everything You Need To Know About the Latest Innovation in Web Technology

Optimizing the resources was not just necessary to address the issue of sustainability. It was also important to reform the whole concept to take the performance matters into a whole different level. Physical servers for a very long period of time have been hosting huge websites and managing their large traffics. But with the internet becoming ever so accessible to most human beings on the planet, the instances of server failures and lag in performances are more frequent then they ever were.

In comes the new age concept of cloud computing in which layers of programs are created over the actual storage and called upon only when needed. Serverless computing is an aid to the whole thing. It optimizes the resources and ensures that they are only used when required. It also serves the needs to share the same capable resources for multiple large applications.

What Is Serverless Computing?

Serverless computing is a model of cloud computing. The concept helps the cause of sharing and optimizing resources. The basis of this model is Functions as a Service (FaaS). Developers can create programs on various different programming languages which can run on this model. With this concept, developers do not need to host their codes on a physical server.

Digital Ocean is one of the leading platforms serving this technology. Their services include migration of your current website that runs on a physical server to the cloud ones that they offer.

How Is Serverless Application Different Than The Ones With Servers?

Every time programmers write codes for their applications, they are placed and stored at a physical location somewhere in the world. This concept is called hosting the website and its backend. Every time someone visits a website through a browser, an HTTP request is generated. This request interacts with the gatekeepers of the server who in return respond with the program that was written to serve that request.

Serverless computing is event-driven. It does not keep the code on its toes to serve the requests generated from the browser. The PHP interpreter in case of a Serverless application awaits a request and then triggers the code. The major difference is that there is no server that holds the interpreter and the codes. On top of it, instead of a web server that receives HTTP requests, Serverless applications use API gateways that are special on-demand services offered by the cloud network.

Benefits of Using Serverless Applications

There are some obvious advantages of using this technology on the face of it. Apart from the fact that this technology preserves resource crunch, it also helps websites respond and subsequently perform faster. The reason why a lot of the finest custom PHP development services are opting for Serverless application development is the speed factor. Since the whole process is done only through API gateways that only have to activate themselves in case of an event/request, the whole process of response is a lot faster than usual.

Let us take a look at some of the advantages of using Serverless application development for your business websites.

Cost

The new event based access to the resources and the FaaS (Function as a Service) ensures that the costs aren’t fixed regardless of the usage. Your website essentially pays for what it uses on a pay as you go basis. With a conventional system, your website would pay an annual fee and that would keep the server on all the time.

For a Serverless application, the API gateways only activate when your code runs. The charges are dissected per millisecond usage by some providers. For a few applications, the costs came down from $50 a month to as low as $17 a month on prolific hosts like AWS.

Speed

Larger resources take longer to respond. Imagine the servers as large modern ships. If the tides are too high and the commands are too quick, it takes its own sweet time to respond. Chances are that your server ships may meet the fate of Titanic on some days (think of all the instances when you as a user encountered those annoying server errors).

Scale

One of the most challenging times for a website is when the business blooms, the traffic on the website is at an all-time high and you realize you did not choose a hosting plan that could facilitate the overwhelming response to the website. Migrating the hosting at that point could not only prove to be a costly affair but could also disturb the whole business model for any uncertain number of hours.

In a Serverless application though, you can create as many copies of your existing code as you want. These copies of programs and applications are generated instantly. The good thing is that you only pay for the amount of resources your website acquires. The best part is that in case there is an unusual spike in the traffic, the application makes multiples instantly and facilitates a large chunk of traffic almost instantly.

Sustainable

For a very long time, consumption of natural resources was only associated with large scale factories. With the rising demands of online businesses, the resources needed to keep the websites functioning have also risen in their size. The electricity consumption for these mega servers that host huge websites is mammoth.

While every other industry is looking to cut down on carbon emission and adopt a sustainable and renewable model, the world of web technology is not far behind in pursuing the cause. All websites running on Serverless applications only use the resources they need in real time. This promotes resource sharing and prevents any wastage of resources. Altogether it helps bring the electricity consumption down.

Maintenance

Since most of this concept’s execution is on cloud, there is no scope to maintain servers. Server maintenance can be quite a task when there is unusual traffic surge or even power failures. Regular practices like handling updates, addressing breakdowns and securing the servers from hack threats are exhausting in reality.

Conclusion

Web technology is nearing its peak. The only way forward is to ensure that it also contributes back to the planet that made it what it is. Cloud computing is one of the greatest innovations we have witnessed in modern times. With websites demanding more and more resources to run their strong and complex programs, it is becoming increasingly difficult for servers and hosts to meet these demands. Serverless application development is a service industry where all that is required to be done is to engage the demands with the platform that is already capable enough to deal with massive loads. The future is now and businesses, regardless of their current scale, are looking to adapt to a technology that is future proof.