Serverless and startups

Post by simplify » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #36

arnvald wrote: post #24

I think I fail to understand how Lambda works better for startups. I see primarily 2 arguments. The first one is simplicity. You pack your Node.js application, upload to lambda and it works. But then in the article I see a chart with API Gateway, then Lambda, then SNS and then Lambda again. How is that simpler than deploying a single Node.js application on DigitalOcean? The 2nd argument is scalability. I see how this…

Have you done much with a framework like Serverless? The simplicity comes in because you can start writing business logic functions immediately. Plain Node typically uses a library like Express or Hapi. While not complicated, it is one more thing that is boiler plate and doesn't provide any business value. If the app needs a queue or messaging, sticking to plain node does not really change the need.

Post by matwood » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:34 PM UTC

qaq wrote: post #72

matwood wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has been both the server baby sitter and implementor of auto-healing/scaling, it still puts a smile on my face when a server fails a health check, AWS kills it, starts another one, and moves the work over. All with zero downtime. I just see the emails in the morning that it happened. The other huge benefit of building this process is we can use dirt cheap spot instances with near abandon. For me, any i…

When AWS is failing over RDS PG there is def nonetrivial downtime

Post by qaq » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 7:54 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #73

qaq wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When AWS is failing over RDS PG there is def nonetrivial downtime

And? You think running your own database is going to have better uptime and scalability than something like Aurora? If something like DB HA is important, I think it's much easier in AWS for a company with a smaller engineering department.

Post by bradenb » Wed, Dec 19, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

slobodan_ wrote: post #45

jasonkester wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like part of your decision was that Lambda comes out cheaper for hosting. That also doesn't pass the arithmetic I use to evaluate such things. A dev, fully loaded, will cost you $200/hour. A half cage at a colo with a really fast machine in it will cost $800/month. So if you choose a stack that adds 4 hours of work each month (or 80 extra hours upfront), you're behind. Given that (as I touched on above), yo…

Serverless is so much more than just Lambda functions.

Post by time0ut » Thu, Dec 20, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #54

falcolas wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you're immediately having to go to a MSA, which immediately adds a whole new layer of complexity, monitoring, network latency, API coordination, and configuration to otherwise simple webapps.

In the case of .Net at least, you write your API like you always do and the SDK provides a wrapper. You can have multiple actions/controllers just like you would with a traditional Web API project. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/developer/serverless-asp-net-co... You test locally just like you would any other WebAPI project.