Serverless Architecture on AWS + Cloud Development Models • Slash

With time, businesses and startups grow. These new milestones convince them to improve their technological ecosystems to stay ahead of their competition. While most companies have relied on previous cloud development models, wise minds already took the AWS serverless architecture road.

If you’re not sure, what are serverless architectures on AWS? How can it benefit your business? Which companies have already migrated to serverless? And whether or not you should go for it? Your prayers are answered here!

So let’s start with the basics.

Table of Contents

What is Cloud-Native?

To know serverless architecture, first, you need to understand the concept of cloud-native.
Cloud-native technologies and architecture are an approach to designing, building, and managing workloads developed in the cloud environment.

It allows businesses to fully benefit from cloud development models by building and running scalable applications in dynamic and modern environments. And all this is done by using approaches like containers, microservices, and serverless.

CAP Theorem and the Cloud-Native

Previously, developers were living with an idea called “CAP Theorem,” proposed by Eric Brewer. He believed that a distributed database system could only provide two out of three functionalities – consistency, availability, and partition tolerance.

So, either a developer can work on the consistency and availability of the application. Or, leave any one approach to make room for partition tolerance.
While the CAP Theorem is surely necessary for designing shared data systems, cloud-native, on the contrary, has given a new mindset.
Now, whenever developers think about building applications using the cloud development models, they focus on three important aspects:

Speed of Change: How quickly can they change the entire system without disrupting other functionalities?
Elasticity: Scaling applications horizontally through the additional infrastructure.
Failure: What are the possible shortcomings they could face in the pre and post-application launch, and what ways to fix those issues?

The above three points signify that cloud-native architectures don’t let developers make a compromise on data, response, and system failure.

And that’s the beauty of cloud development models.

Understanding Containers, Microservices, and Serverless Architecture

Containers, microservices, and serverless architectures are all part of cloud development models and are quite important in application development.

What are Containers?

“Containers” are software packages and technology to run Windows and Linux applications in the cloud and on-premises environments. Containers make it easier to develop, deploy and administer apps through their lightweight and isolated environment. These features make them beneficial for enhancing density and infrastructure utilization. And since they immediately start and stop, they allow programs to adapt to new changes.

A few of the many attributes of containers are:

They are a type of operating system virtualization
Can run heavy applications as well as small microservices
Includes configuration files, libraries, binary code, and executable.

What are Microservices?

Microservices is an architectural pattern that segments your application into several small parts. Each segmented service performs a particular task and aids a specific business goal using its own database. Moreover, it uses a simple and explicit interface, like an Application Programming Interface (API), to allow communication among other services. Or with the help of pub or sub-services, such as AWS SNS and AWS SQS.

For instance, an e-Commerce store with authentication, product, and payment services. One of the greatest charms of microservices architecture is that it permits companies to make smaller and more agile teams.

What is Serverless Architecture?

A serverless platform permits you to run the application, including storing, networking, and computing, without requiring a gigantic server infrastructure. So, does that mean there are no servers in serverless architecture?

Of course, there are servers involved but not stationed at your business premises. All the server infrastructure is the responsibility of the provider. That allows developers to develop, deploy, and run applications without worrying about building and maintaining the servers on-site.

Diving Deep into the Serverless Architectures on AWS

A serverless architecture lets you focus solely on your product’s growth strategies rather than worrying about operating and managing servers. And this is where Amazon Web Services (AWS) comes in!

AWS is the world’s widely utilized cloud platform. It’s a service with 200+ features for serverless architectures, including API Gateway, Lambda, DynamoDB, and more. Serverless architectures on AWS allow developers to run applications on servers under AWS management.

The supervision, maintenance, and scaling of your applications and databases on AWS become the responsibility of the chosen serverless software engineering company. As a result, your business enjoys reduced expenses and high profits.

To give you a glimpse of some general use cases, here’s how serverless architectures on AWS can simplify routine operations of your app:

Collection of application metrics in a high load scenario through REST API
Data extraction and storage from emails with order and status information
Chatbot development with capabilities to interact with multiple APIs

The above scenarios are just a drop in the ocean, as serverless architectures can benefit your business in many ways.

Traits of Serverless Architectures on AWS

Serverless and microservices go hand-in-hand for top-notch app development and management.
Serverless architectures on AWS allow managing both synchronous and asynchronous applications.
AWS serverless architecture stores data externally through services like Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon S3.
AWS gives you a series of services to build and manage your applications, such as Amazon SES for sending and receiving emails, Amazon Lex for developing chatbots, and much more.

Common Serverless Services on AWS

Opting for cloud development models for serverless architecture on AWS gives you access to various services, which makes application management smooth. For instance:

AWS Lambda: Pay-as-you-go and event-driven service to run codes without managing servers.
AWS Step Functions: For sequencing multiple AWS services for an orchestrated workflow.
Amazon API Gateway: For creating and publishing APIs.
DynamoDB: Single-digit millisecond document and database service.

Use Cases – Leading Organizations Doing the Victory Dance after Choosing AWS Serverless Architecture

Case 1: Netflix

The popular streaming service Netflix used cloud development models to scale its growth and manage its operations. In 2016, the company chose AWS as its cloud provider and closed its last data center.

Result: Moving to the cloud not only grew its streaming members but also allowed the company to implement great features.

Most importantly, migrating to serverless architecture on AWS helped reduce costs and allowed Netflix to increase its service availability in 130 countries.

Case 2: Shamrock Trading Corporations

Shamrock generates billions of dollars annually; now, it is among the top enterprises with serverless technology. This company is known for its technology, financial, and transportation services.

Shamrock was using an invoicing app developed with Docker. But due to a broad range of users, it wasn’t easy to manage the app. Therefore, in 2018, the company decided to switch to a serverless architecture.

Result: Serverless architecture not only helped manage a high number of users. But Shamrock also noticed monthly cost reductions in operations (10 times less than Dockers). Plus, the company also witnessed traffic increase by 30%.

Benefits of Serverless Architecture on AWS

Serverless architecture on AWS helps startups and enterprises in several ways, including:

1. Quick Deployment

All you need to do is choose a provider and AWS development company.

2. Cost-efficient

Serverless architectures on AWS can reduce up to 90% of resources and backend maintenance costs.

3. Unlimited Scalability

On-server applications have limits, but serverless architecture is limitless. You can scale your business by allowing more users to your application without complications.

4. Pivoting Efficiency

You can create microservices and use containers for your applications while using AWS serverless infrastructure.

5. Reusability

Serverless architecture makes application development much easier, as you can create and reuse all the elements for other projects.

Should You Move to Serverless?

We know it’s a big decision!

So here’s what our serverless experts at Slash recommend about serverless adaptation and migration in “Yes” or “No”:

YES – If you have just started building your product.
YES and NO – If you already have an existing product.

Why “No” if the product already exists?

Serverless is awesome! But it doesn’t mean it’s the only choice for you.
If your current infrastructure and cost are friendly enough to bear compared to other expenses, feel free to stick with the current model for your application.

Why “Yes” if you already have a great product?

You can plan a step-by-step migration (from the application layer to the database layer). Or, choose the priority-based model (picking the infrequency service and moving first):

When the existing infrastructure is extremely expensive.
If the server has a lot of idle time.

Wondering how you can migrate to the cloud? It’s simple if you follow these 4 steps:

Know Your Requirements

Before moving to the cloud, think about why you want to shift. Is it due to application interoperability? Legacy data? Critical application? Or any other factors. You should also consider the reliance data factor. Ask yourself if the data requires syncs daily. Are you meeting the data compliance requirements? Or, is there any non-critical data that can be migrated in the initial passes of the process?

All these questions and their answers will aid you in creating a robust plan for:

Tools selection for migration
Identifying the essential data to be migrated at the correct time
Data scrubbing and destination volumes to rely on
Deciding whether you need encryption for data in transit and data at rest

Look for Experienced Cloud Providers

The next step is determining cloud providers to help migrate your data to the cloud. However, you should consider those who offer affordable services without compromising on the quality of migration. So before picking any service, be sure about these three points:

The operational benefits you would get after opting for a particular cloud provider
What type of architectural improvements will you get once the migration is completed?
How cost-effective will their services be?

Executing Data Migration

Execution is one of the most critical parts of data migration to the cloud. It should be done with the least interruptions and in the shortest time possible. Why so? It is because, during this process, users cannot access data, which can negatively impact your business operations.

You must ensure that all the data that needs to be migrated has been tested in the new environment individually before the execution. You must also identify ways to synchronize changes during the migration. Contrarily, if you are using platforms like AWS and Azure, then the good news is that they have their own tools to support cloud and data migration.

Maintenance

Once the data migration to the cloud is done, ensure it is secure, optimized, and simple to retrieve. Your cloud provider should help you monitor the entire post-migration in real-time to ensure there are no or fewer complications in the future. And most importantly, users have access to data without any difficulty.

How does Slash Work with Serverless Architecture?

Slash has a significant experience working on cloud development models and technologies, including DevOps and serverless architecture on AWS, as well as other clouds for high-end but cost-effective product development.

Our remote serverless teams acquire highly skilled, talented experts to help you with:

Hosting web applications with static websites
Backend on REST API and GraphQL
Amazon S3, RDS, DynamoDB, and Aurora data stores
Hosting a docker container with AWS Fargate and Amazon ECS
Media conversion into multiple output formats
Serverless application development and management with AWS Lambda and other serverless services
Integration of IoT, ML, and AI-based services to your serverless applications

Slash has helped dozens of organizations with cloud development models. We are just an email away from building and managing your applications through serverless architecture on AWS.