Is Serverless Computing the Right Move for Your Business?

Explore the pros and cons of serverless computing to determine if it's the right fit for your business. Reduce costs, enhance efficiency, and assess challenges.

Take a stroll through your IT room. What do you see? Chances are, you’re staring at multiple servers. Your servers are the backbone of your infrastructure. They’re also expensive and incredibly time-consuming to maintain.

Did you know you may be able to get rid of your servers? Nope, this doesn’t mean going old school and trying to run a business without your IT infrastructure. However, you can take advantage of serverless computing. Before you start ditching some of your IT infrastructure, addressing the benefits and challenges of serverless computing is crucial.

Key Benefits of Serverless Computing

Before diving into the potential benefits, it helps to understand what serverless computing means. Are you familiar with cloud computing? If so, serverless computing is just another name for the same thing. You’re not using physical servers. Instead, they’re virtual. You’re partnering with a service provider who essentially gives you access to their cloud-based servers.

In a nutshell, you’re getting rid of some or most of your IT infrastructure without giving up essential systems and services. Sounds good so far, right? This is only one of the potential benefits of serverless computing.

See a Drop in Expenses

Whether you’re answering to a board, investors, or just yourself, operating expenses tend to be a hot topic. You want to keep expenses low without sacrificing things like quality, efficiency, and performance.

Everything from purchasing to maintaining your servers comes at a pretty high price. Are you renting space for your IT department? If so, this is another added cost. Switching over to a service provider is a great way to reduce some operating costs. You’re still dealing with the service provider’s usage fees, but they’re nowhere near as costly as keeping traditional servers up and running.

Scalable to Your Business Needs

Paying for unused services doesn’t make any sense. Wouldn’t it be great if you could only pay for what you’re using at a specific time? If you need more services, you can add them. When the project’s finished, you get rid of the extra services.

This isn’t something you can only dream about. Serverless computing is more or less built around what you need. You can easily scale up when the workflow goes a little nuts. When things calm back down, you can cancel any services you’re no longer using. Yep, this also ties back into cost-effectiveness.

Watch Employee Efficiency Rise

How much time is your staff spending patching servers? Maintenance is a pain. Instead of watching your team spend hours maintaining servers, why not let someone else take over? A service provider handles maintenance. This way, your team can focus on work tasks like developing an app that makes online purchasing a breeze. When employee efficiency is on the rise, your profits tend to follow along.

Serverless Computing Can Have Potential Downsides

Looking away from benefits like efficiency and, more importantly, savings is tough. However, cloud computing isn’t without a few potential challenges. Don’t worry, these possible hiccups aren’t too extreme but they’re something to consider.

Unused Functions Can Go to Sleep

What happens when you stop using a function? Chances are, it goes to sleep. A dormant function doesn’t mean the end of the world but it’s annoying. You can also lose money waiting for the function to wake back up.

Your primary problem is probably going to be a ridiculously slow lag time. How slow? You may have time to brew a fresh cup of coffee before the function even pops up. If you’re dealing with a rush project, slow latency times can cause a whole host of issues across the organization.

Potential Increase in Security Risks

The cloud isn’t a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Remember, the cloud is scalable, so you’re only paying for what you need. You also have options on which cloud model you go with. Whether it’s a public, hybrid, or private cloud, all three come with built-in security features you can build on.

So far, security risks seem to be well in hand, but it’s not always the case. You can only do so much to protect your data on your end, the rest is up to your service provider. If they aren’t using robust security measures, your data may be at risk.

Embracing Serverless Computing

Okay, potential risks like lapses in security will make you sit up and take notice. This doesn’t mean serverless computing isn’t a good move for your organization. The advantages tend to come out on top. Just remember to research your service provider before tossing your traditional servers.