Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#1

Post by drewhenson » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 4:57 PM UTC

Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway
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Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#2

Post by adamors » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:03 PM UTC

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#3

Post by autotune » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #2

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

Container based architectures like Mesos are definitely being considered for production use, at least in the startup scene (look up jobs on AngelList for examples). Plenty of companies still sticking with the virtual server route though and plenty more who haven't even reached the virtual server stage yet. iRobot is a good case study for Lambda at least: https://twitter.com/awssummits/status/753325988717604864

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#4

Post by stevekemp » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #2

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

I think more bubble than substance for serverless, but I can easily see the appeal and expect that they'll become more useful over time.

Certainly the idea of microservices is a good one, for me and a lot of my use-cases, and that's the start of the journey towards an API-gateway. (The big downsides being less control, and a central point of failure, obviously.)

Containers I think are different, and are used in production a lot.

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#5

Post by bio4m » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #2

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

I wrote a set of internal use systems using Lambda and API Gateway. I'm in two minds about it; its handy but at the moment I dont think its mature enough for a critical live system.

I'd like better ways to collect execution data for debugging and more visibility all round. With those it would definitely be a contender.

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#6

Post by the_duke » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

aka "Going towards total vendor lock in by basing your system on a proprietary, non portable infrastructure service"

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#7

Post by hehheh » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #6

aka "Going towards total vendor lock in by basing your system on a proprietary, non portable infrastructure service"

Migration between infrastructures is always painful, so I don't think vendor lock in is that big a deal, if you keep APIs small and their I/O well documented (and designed).

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#8

Post by mintplant » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:28 PM UTC

adamors wrote: post #2

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

Serverless is pretty big in the PHP world, but people there tend to call it "shared hosting".

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#9

Post by psuter » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:30 PM UTC

the_duke wrote: post #6

aka "Going towards total vendor lock in by basing your system on a proprietary, non portable infrastructure service"

FWIW, OpenWhisk, while available on IBM Bluemix, is also open source and can be run wherever you so desire: https://github.com/openwhisk/openwhisk

Re: Going Serverless with AWS Lambda and API Gateway

#10

Post by cscharenberg » Tue, Aug 16, 2016, 6:35 PM UTC

bio4m wrote: post #5

adamors wrote: post #2

Are serverless and container based architectures really that popular in the real world, or is it yet another HN bubble? I'm still happy using virtual/cloud servers for anything/everything.

I wrote a set of internal use systems using Lambda and API Gateway. I'm in two minds about it; its handy but at the moment I dont think its mature enough for a critical live system. I'd like better ways to collect execution data for debugging and more visibility all round. With those it would definitely be a contender.

Indeed. Debugging them is painful at the moment. I'm using Apex to deploy a few and running "apex logs" gets me all recent logs, but that's pretty far from being actually debugging.