I expected the article to be about the goodness of some peer-to-peer architecture that doesn't require central servers, not a twisted definition of cloud computing.
Serverless Architectures
61–70 of 215 posts
Re: Serverless Architectures
#62What a ridiculous and strange definition this is. Its an architecture that relies on multiple, supposedly distributed services, all of which are hosted on servers... Why not just call it "Multiserver" instead. If they mean "containerless servers" or "microservices", then why don't they say so? If they mean "distributed servers" why not call it that. If they mean that the client relies on multiple services (each hoste…
I think it's basically a stateless PaaS/microservice with a set of constrains/APIs on top. The BaaS/Serveless architectures also seem to have their own sub-categories based on the constrains/target. Some are fat(i.e. a kind of full blown PaaS with a common/advanced API gateway on top like parse.com) and others are lightweight(i.e. amazon lambda) meant to run as a function(e.g. update a record on event changes). In the end they are various abstractions that hopefully will improve the security and help you to manage your infrastructure easier.
Re: Serverless Architectures
#63What a ridiculous and strange definition this is. Its an architecture that relies on multiple, supposedly distributed services, all of which are hosted on servers... Why not just call it "Multiserver" instead. If they mean "containerless servers" or "microservices", then why don't they say so? If they mean "distributed servers" why not call it that. If they mean that the client relies on multiple services (each hoste…
I think Fowler tends to do this in general. Here's a comment from 2 years ago I posted along the same lines:
https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/2051mx/microse...
(And yes, 2 years ago I was a little more violent with my wording. Time has taught me things.)
Re: Serverless Architectures
#64If successful this could lead reduction in developers needed in companies that use say AWS lambda.
If history is a guide, I suspect it will just increase the size and complexity of apps. Its amazing what small teams with serverless architectures can accomplish nowadays.
> If history is a guide.
Could you elaborate on this ?
I agree the size and complexity could increase, but so could the number features in the apps. Since all such apps would be reusing the same code base, wouldn't this increase abstraction and reduce implementation hours ?
Re: Serverless Architectures
#65What a ridiculous and strange definition this is. Its an architecture that relies on multiple, supposedly distributed services, all of which are hosted on servers... Why not just call it "Multiserver" instead. If they mean "containerless servers" or "microservices", then why don't they say so? If they mean "distributed servers" why not call it that. If they mean that the client relies on multiple services (each hoste…
No, the idea is simple - the servers are invisible to the user, he doesn't know what or how many are in use. Since the servers are completely abstracted away, they could have just as well not be - hence serverless. An analogy escapes me but I sure there are some.
> they could have just as well not be
That's a weird logical leap.
Let's make the servers not be by unplugging them. How's the abstraction working now?
Re: Serverless Architectures
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this context "server" doesn't mean "entity listening on some network endpoint, providing some service to network-connected clients" (which is I think the definition you're assuming). Instead "server" here means "Unix Machine". Thus "serverless" means software and humans writing and deploying said software that do not need to know anything about /etc/ and installing packages and disk partitioning and swapping and w…
So my car is engineless if I never look under the hood?
I think this architecture is public transportation in that analogy.
Re: Serverless Architectures
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
In this context "server" doesn't mean "entity listening on some network endpoint, providing some service to network-connected clients" (which is I think the definition you're assuming). Instead "server" here means "Unix Machine". Thus "serverless" means software and humans writing and deploying said software that do not need to know anything about /etc/ and installing packages and disk partitioning and swapping and w…
So my car is engineless if I never look under the hood?
Maybe worry free if you don't need to look under the hood. If the manufacturer would lock the hood you would never know :)
Re: Serverless Architectures
#68The vendor lock-in alone is enough to make BaaS dead on arrival. Some seem to lock you not only on specific platform APIs but also on a single programming language(i.e. javascript) like it wasn't worse enough to have a single language on the client.
I completely disagree that it's DOA. In fact, I think it's clear that is the future of development.
Like any piece of the software stack, there are providers focusing on services that are proprietary, open source, and a mixture of the two. I am personally most excited about the hosted open source providers, because it gives dev teams immediate access to the technology, but the option to bring it in house when and how it makes sense.
Re: Serverless Architectures
#69There's a big difference between Paas, where you hand over control of your backend. Compared to Faas, where you just outsource a small part of your infrastructure. FaaS solutions like algolia, getsentry, getstream.io. mapbox, layer, keen.io, twilio, stripe etc only run a small part of your application. They scale well, are more reliable and often more cost-effective than an in-house solution. If you're ever not happy…
Twilio, Stripe, etc. aren't what the article is referring to as FaaS (which, incidentally, I've never heard of outside this article but seems pretty descriptive). They're talking about things like Amazon Lambda, Google Cloud Functions, and Parse Cloud Code, where you write code that runs on a third-party service. The entry & exit points of the code are under the control of hosting provider, which distinguishes it from PaaS, where they normally take a well-known platform that'd work fine on your laptop and then perform hosting and administration.
Think of it as the API vs SPI distinction that we used to have back in Windows-land. API-only services like Twilio or Stripe are usually just called SaaS.
Re: Serverless Architectures
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
For you. At the moment. "Dead on arrival" has a meaning, and this isn't it.
Well if I can't use it now due the constrains mentioned above it is dead to me. Would you bet your project on Google functions[0]? [0] https://cloud.google.com/functions/docs/
That isn't what DoA means. "DoA" doesn't care for whether an individual can use it, it cares for the collective.
I'm sure Stallman couldn't use the iphone when it came out because of constraints, that doesn't mean the iphone ever was DoA.