Software development industry is constantly looking for new ways to turn processes into a more efficient work. Evaluating the processes existing within the area, tracking them, improving them, and measuring their success is vital to any software development company. Moreover, fact is that improving all the work process does not have to be a huge endless operation, if you start with small, incremental improvements.

All along this journey, Serverless (FaaS and BaaS) is, for sure, a key solution to get things done. We are talking here about some cloud-native development model that allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers. It simplifies the code development and deployment process all the way until the end. This kind of overarching architectural pattern makes use of FaaS (Functions as a Service) or BaaS (Backend as a Service) along with other cloud-managed services.

In this case, while BaaS deals with backend functionality as a whole, FaaS addresses only microservices in applications so it may respond to the events that occur punctually. That been said, it is clear backend functionality is a constant thing, but microservices are certain events that appear from time to time and need a quick reaction.

According to a report from Global Market Insights, the serverless architecture market size already exceed $9 billion by the end of 2022 and will reach $90 billion by 2032. Before that, Cision points the market will reach USD 36.84 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 21.71% from 2021 to 2028.

How does this works?

Serverless architecture is some kind of an extension on the cloud-computing concept and is similar to edge computing because it has typical server functionalities for local devices. One of the most popular serverless architectures is Function as a Service (FaaS), where developers write their application code as a set of discrete functions. However, companies also work with some other variations like SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), IoT, web applications architectures, among many more. The choice must be made with total knowledge of the needs software development has each time. One thing is for sure, application development, based on the cloud, must have three mandatory elements on its process:

a) FaaS solution

It is one of the most important elements on the serverless architecture, allowing programmer teams to build, run and deploy applications without worrying about the server infrastructure. It aims to offer developers the freedom to create software functions in a cloud environment with the code being executed in stateless compute instances that are managed by the cloud provider.

b) Security token service

Serverless architecture was developed to create a security token for each user. Security tokens work with digital certificates for validation and so workloads remain dynamic and flexible, but any request from one workload to another has a dependable method of proving the workload's identity. Once it takes place, a one-time token will be issued for that session to proceed.

c) Data base

To have a database in place is, somehow, a key part of the serverless architecture, regardless of whether an application is developed and managed in this type of architecture, fact is that data has to be stored in a database somewhere. Organizations may go for a serverless database, which is a fully managed database-as-a-service (DBaaS), that allocates and scales compute and storage resources automatically, and elastically on demand. 

An overview

 So, as we point several times before, serverless is a technology that brings more competitiveness to each and every one of the organizational segments, but it also requires a specialized partner with the necessary soft and hard skills to help you make the full out of it. So, if you want to learn more about this technology, don`t miss some of this books: “Serverless Architectures on AWS”, “Flow Architectures” or “Flow Architectures”, among many others you can find out here.