Serverless - what should I have thought about?

I have been working with serverless for about 2 years now and I really like it and can recommend it!

I can share two steps that I can recommend to you who want to start with serverless. I have mainly been using AWS Services which I will mention in this article.

So to start with quickly, what is serverless?

Serverless is a cloud-native development model that allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage servers meaning it essentially uses a cloud provider to completely manage your infrastructure.

Some benefits with serverless:

• You only pay for when you use the service
• You're moving away from servers and allowing developers to focus on code
• You can build high scalability and reliability applications without managing servers
• Offloading more responsibility to your cloud provider

Remember, you don't have to use serverless just because. There are cases where serverless might just not be the best solution.

Two stpes I can recommend you to think of when you're using serverless:

Start by using the AWS Console to play around

Firstly, I recommend you to create an AWS account.

When you have created your AWS account - play around, check the different settings, what happens when you change some setting, what options is available etc.

Let's take AWS Lambda functions for example, play around with it. Check how you invoke a Lambda, create a Lambda with the newly supported arm64 architecture. Figure out how you trace errors.

Next, create an Amazon DynamoDB. Create tables, checkout the Partition key and Sort key. Read about Read capacity unit (RCU) to get a better understanding about the costs. Use the Lambda you have created to add a row to the database.

When you have played around with Console and different services, then you proceed to the next step.

Start using Infrastructure as Code

After you have played around in the Console, have got a better understanding of the services I can really recommend you to use IaC for all your environments and not handle any changes from the Console.

This to understand what’s happening and to see the result of configuration changes. I can basically say, once you know what you are doing IaaC tools are really good and powerful!

Frameworks for serverless

• AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM)
• Serverless framework
• Terraform

Summary

A short summary of how I recommend you to get started with serverless. Don't rush into things, it's better to have a good understanding of the tools and services you are using. Good luck!

Any comments, questions or discussions are always welcome!