Serverless is one of the new buzzwords that you have probably heard in recent times. It refers to a type of deployment where the server is abstracted away. It does not mean there are no servers, just that you do not have to provision the servers yourself.
In some cases, serverless can free your business from the costs of maintaining infrastructure, upgrades, and provisioning servers. In this post, we’ll be exploring the basics of what serverless is, how it differs from microservices, and some possible benefits.
WHAT IS SERVERLESS?
With serverless, the user can simply write the code (usually in the form of functions/methods). The user can do so with many popular languages, including C#, JavaScript, Java, and so on. This code is deployed to a cloud provider like Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), and many more.
The code is triggered by events. Events can be as simple as HTTP requests, or they could be many other types of events, depending on what the cloud platform supports.
Within the cloud, the servers that executes the code are automatically provisioned (and decommissioned) by the cloud provider on needed basis.
SERVERLESS VS MICROSERVICES
There are some similarities between serverless and microservices, but they are not the same thing. Both are methods to break an application into smaller, independent pieces. They differ in what is deployed and what is managed.
PROPERTIES OF THE SERVERLESS ARCHITECTURE
There are 4 functions which can be deployed separately.
Each function is able to communicate with the database.
The user doesn’t have to provision a VM, the user can just deploy a function directly.
The function only consumes resources when needed.
ADVANTAGES OF SERVERLESS
There are some advantages when using a serverless architecture.
One topmost advantage is that scalability is handled by the cloud provider. If demand or usage increases, the cloud provider can compensate by adding more servers when necessary.
Another advantage is that costs are tied to usage. If the user has a service that is constantly in use, the user might not see any benefits. But if the user has a service that is intermittently used, then serverless may provide cost savings.
Cloud computing has helped many organizations to transmute their IT practices over the past few years, but whizzes agree that the market is ingoing a second wave for public, private and hybrid cloud services.
Predictions from major consultancy firms mentioned the fact that for the coming years, the rate of adoption is sustainable, and cloud computing will see more investment from IT giants, and more adoption from businesses.
In parallel, market experts, along with shareholders from the IT industry and enterprises across the globe, are in agreement that there is an irrefutable wave of transformation and progress taking shape. This metaphorical wave is best understood as the sum total of distinct trends in cloud computing that are shaping the industry. Let us understand these trends better, which can help you to get better idea on your IT cloud strategies.
IT CLOUD STRATEGIES
HYPER CONVERGENCE IN THE PRIVATE CLOUD
It is grabbing our attention, how a plenitude of enterprises has preferred the cloud because of lack of trust in the security of their own on-premises technologies, and after the transition, have to deal with the truth that business data rests with a third-party vendor in the public cloud services domain.
Hyper convergence in private cloud appears as a solution. Now, private cloud also needs normalization, automation, resource monitoring, self-service, and virtualization, same as the public cloud. Dealing with all these capabilities and binding them into a coherent unit is hard for businesses, hyper convergence appears as an IT cloud strategies option.
COST CONTROL
The truth is, the payments for cloud investments have been long delayed for many enterprises. The cloud services purely based on cost, it helps to develop insight on regulating cloud costs.
For beginners, complex pricing plans and contracts are responsible for making businesses waterlogged so they are having trouble venturing into cost analyses. For example, Amazon and Google offer cloud services that charge businesses on the basis of number of messages generated per hour, or number of messages sent in a day. Then, there are several plans for each service customer wish to purchase.
CONTAINERS ARE HERE TO STAY
Almost all major cloud service providers support container development. Containers help the developers to migrate software code effortlessly. OpenShift and CloudFoundry can be functioned easily on Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud. Containers help enterprises with portability between cloud services from Azure, Google Cloud, and AWS, or among others.
This is because they can use containers to realize their DevOps strategies to allow faster software production. The new paradigm brings new challenges around security, monitoring, networking, and storage issues. However, in spite of these challenges, containers have established their worth by helping enterprises to leverage portability
CLOUD APPS MIGRATION
Some organizations are also looking for a refactor apps to run on public cloud systems, leveraging migration services, rather than simply removing existing apps in a public cloud. The ideal option of moving an application is by rewriting it to take advantage of cloud’s elasticity, although cloud apps migration can be expensive.
THE VERDICT
Cloud services have grown stronger, and are all set to transmute even more businesses, in more number of ways, than before. These trends will help CIOs and other IT decision makers to align their business cloud strategies to the realities shaping the market.
Cloud Custodian is a tool that combines dozens of tools and scripts that most organizations use for managing their AWS accounts into one open source tool. It is a stateless rule engine for policy definition and enforcement, with metrics and detailed reporting for AWS.
Companies can use Custodian to manage their AWS environments by certifying compliance to security policies, tag policies, garbage collection of unused resources, and cost management through off-hours resource management. Custodian policies are written in simple YAML configuration files that specify given resource types and are constructed from a vocabulary of filters and actions.
Cloud computing has created and managed web resources very easily. The user can now spin up quite a few computing, database, and storage resources with the click of a button or the stroke of a return key. However, if the user uses the company account, then the user is likely to spin up those resources often for demonstration and testing purposes, without considering the price or clutter you might be creating along with it.
Cloud Custodian feature-set has grown exponentially with its popularity because they are good at responding to feature requests. It has now grown to the point where there is not much in the AWS world that you cannot do with it. Here is a short list of things you might be surprised what Cloud Custodian can do.
Encryption
Backups
Garbage Collection
Unused Resources
Tag Compliance
SG Compliance
Below is a basic example of custodian.yml file that stops EC2 instances tagged with custodian.
Cloud Custodian is always good for mid to large sized organizations that give access to a large number of their employee’s to organizations AWS account. Usually, the account quickly becomes cluttered with dozens of Cloud Formation stacks, VPCs, old test instances, and Lambda functions.
Cloud Custodian is very well documented, if you are excited to start taking out the digital trash in your AWS account there is no other best place than this.
Despite the rapid adoption of cloud computing and its positive impact on business, there are still some myths and risks, concerns and misinformation around deploying and running applications in the cloud.
In this article we will be going to discuss the myths and the risks and provide the correct information and make you take an informed decision for your business or organization.
MYTH: EVERYTHING WORKS BETTER IN THE CLOUD
Cloud computing has its place in every business and organization, from multi-national corporations and financial institutions to online businesses and start-ups. The common profits of the cloud are faster time to market and streamlined processes and flexible infrastructure costs which are difficult to ignore. But just because the cloud has its place in every business, does not mean it is right for every task.
The public cloud might be best for some actions, private cloud for others, and dedicated hosting for legacy applications. Getting the right overall solution often requires a combination public, private, and dedicated infrastructure.
RISK: SECURITY RISKS AT THE VENDOR
When a cloud service vendor provides a critical service for your business and stores critical data – such as customer payment data and the mailing lists then you are placing the life of your business in the vendor’s hands.
Many small businesses know almost nothing about the people and technology behind the cloud services they use.
When the person is depending on a cloud service for their business-critical task, then they put the trust of their business into the hands of other people and the quality of their work.
The reputation is no longer depends on the integrity of only their business – now it also depends on the integrity of the vendor’s business. And that’s a cloud computing risk.
MYTH: DATA IS NOT AS SECURE IN THE CLOUD
A security breach could bring down your site and may cause the users to lose their valuable revenue. Therefore, it is not surprising that security concerns are one of the largest hurdles for many businesses considering the cloud. However, security is also one of the easiest cloud myths to debunk.
In reality, security risks in the cloud are the same as those faced by traditional IT solutions, but with one main difference: When operating in the cloud, security no longer rests on your shoulders alone. Instead, security is a shared responsibility with the cloud hosting provider.
RISK: RISKS RELATED TO LACK OF CONTROL
When the user host and maintain a service on a local network, then the user has complete control over the features he/she choose to use. However, when the user uses a cloud service provider, the vendor will have the control. The user has no guarantee that the features using today will be provided for the same price tomorrow or not. The vendor can double its price, and if the clients are depending on that service, then the user might be forced to pay. Also, who controls access to the user’s data in a cloud service? What happens if the user is not able to make payment?
If the user gets behind on their bill, then the user may be surprised to find their data is held hostage by the vendor. The user cannot access the service and export the data until he/she pay up.
MYTH: IT IS ALWAYS CHEAPER TO RUN IN THE CLOUD
It is not always cheaper to run in the cloud, but it can often be more cost effective. If you need all your servers running 24x7x365, it is likely you can get the same compute power for less cost using a dedicated server.
Cloud works best for variable demands and workloads, where you have higher demand at certain times and lower demand at others. The cloud allows to switch servers off during periods of lower demand to improve cost efficiency by more closely matching the cost pattern to the user’s revenue/demand pattern.
RISK: AVAILABILITY RISKS
No service can guarantee 100% uptime. When you rely on a cloud service for a business-critical task, then you are putting the feasibility of the business in the hands of two services: the cloud vendor and ISP.
If the user’s internet access goes down, then it will also take your vendor’s cloud service with it.
MYTH: CLOUD TECHNOLOGY IS STILL IN ITS INFANCY
A latest ISACA study revealed that cloud computing is fast approaching, within the next few years, you can expect to see constant innovation at an ever-increasing pace. Constant refinement will help to ensure that cloud computing meets the needs of every size and type of business. Those who harness the cloud now will be the first to reap its long-term rewards.
How the Internet of Things(IOT) Will Change Cloud Computing?
The Internet of Things(IOT) ecosystem includes any form of technology that can connect to the internet. This means connected cars, wearables, TVs, smartphones, fitness equipment, robots, ATMs, vending machines, and all of the vertical applications, security and professional services, analytics and platforms that come with them.
The goal of the IOT is to make these applications, services, and devices as ubiquitous as possible, all while enabling the gathering of vast quantities of data about user and consumer preferences.
With the help of cloud computing, IOT will dramatically change the way we live our daily lives as well as what and how information is managed. Thanks to its on-demand nature, cloud computing is available for use anytime and anywhere so long as the device is connected to the internet based on the software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or infrastructure as a service (IaaS) service model.
The cloud is the only technology suitable for filtering, analyzing, storing and accessing IoT and other information in useful ways, depending on the deployment model used.
