The Rise of Serverless Computing and Low/No-Code

This article was originally published in Forbes. Dutt Kalluri is the Chief Digital Officer at Celsior and a member of the respected Forbes Technology Council.

The software development industry has been revolutionized in recent years with the advent of serverless computing and low/no-code application development platforms. These innovations have enabled businesses, developers and nontechnical individuals to create and deploy software applications more efficiently and cost-effectively.

I have been working on low-code/no-code applications for almost a decade, and I led major transformation projects by adopting serverless and low/no-code platforms to deliver highly scalable, resilient fintech platforms. In this two-part series, I’ll explore the concepts of serverless computing and low/no-code applications, their benefits and how they’re changing the way companies develop and deploy software.

The difference between Serverless and Low/No-Code

Serverless computing and low/no-code app development are two distinct but related concepts:

Serverless computing refers to a cloud computing model in which the cloud provider manages the infrastructure and automatically allocates resources as needed to run and scale applications. In serverless computing, developers don’t manage servers or infrastructure, and they only pay for the computing resources they actually use.
Low/no-code app development refers to the practice of building applications using visual, drag-and-drop interfaces instead of writing code. Low-code platforms often have pre-built modules and templates that developers can use to quickly create applications without having to write all the code from scratch.

The connection between serverless computing and low/no-code app development lies in their ability to simplify the application development process.

By using a serverless computing platform, developers can focus on building the application logic without worrying about the underlying infrastructure. Similarly, low/no-code platforms allow developers to build applications quickly without having to write all the code from scratch.

In combination, serverless computing and low/no-code app development can be a powerful way to build applications quickly and efficiently. By using a low/no-code platform on top of a serverless computing platform, developers can build complex applications without having to worry about infrastructure, servers or complex coding requirements.

Understanding Serverless Computing

Serverless computing was developed as a response to some of the challenges companies were facing with traditional server-based architectures. Some of these challenges include:

Scalability: Scaling traditional server-based architectures can be difficult and expensive. Companies had to estimate the peak usage and over-provision server capacity to handle it, which was a waste of resources.
Maintenance: Traditional server-based architectures require ongoing maintenance, dedicated IT staff, patch management and updates to keep the servers running smoothly.
Cost: Maintaining and managing server-based architectures is expensive. Companies must pay for the servers, storage, data center space and other infrastructure, as well as for the staff required to maintain them.

Serverless computing addresses the above challenges by eliminating the need for organizations to manage their own server infrastructure. Serverless computing is a cloud-based execution model that allows developers to focus on writing and deploying their code without the need to manage, maintain or scale any underlying infrastructure. The cloud provider handles the operational aspects, such as server provisioning, capacity planning and patching.

Major cloud service providers offer serverless computing services that enable developers to run their code in response to events or triggers without provisioning or managing servers. Because of this, serverless computing offers a few important benefits:

Cost Efficiency: With serverless computing, you only pay for the compute time you consume, eliminating the need to pay for pre-allocated resources or idle server time.

Scalability: Serverless architectures can automatically scale to accommodate varying workloads, ensuring that your application is responsive.

Flexibility: Developers can choose from a variety of languages, frameworks and tools to build their serverless applications, allowing for custom solutions.

Faster Time-To-Market: With infrastructure management taken care of by the cloud provider, developers can focus on writing code and delivering new features faster.

How to choose a Serverless Platform

Selecting a serverless platform requires careful consideration of several factors like your application’s requirements, platforms and the trade-offs like performance, scalability, cost and vendor lock-in. Here are some steps to selecting a serverless platform:

Determine your requirements. What are your application’s requirements in terms of workload, the number of users, the type of data, scalability, performance, security and cost?
Evaluate different serverless platforms. Once you have a clear understanding of your requirements, evaluate different serverless platforms to determine which ones can meet your needs. Consider factors such as the supported programming languages, deployment options, service integrations and pricing models.
Consider the vendor lock-in. Consider the risk of vendor lock-in when selecting a serverless platform. Some serverless platforms are proprietary and may limit your ability to switch to a different platform in the future.
Ensure compliance with regulations. Ensure that the serverless platform is compliant with any applicable regulations, such as data protection laws or industry-specific regulations.

Every new technology adoption comes with its challenges. Some of the challenges and potential downsides that the companies face with serverless computing are:

Once you adopt a platform (AWS, Azure) then it could be difficult to change platforms. Adopting a serverless solution from one vendor may make it difficult to switch to another vendor in the future, due to differences in APIs, programming languages and other proprietary technologies.
Serverless functions run in containers that are created on demand, which can result in a delay in the initial response time, also known as cold start latency. This delay can be especially problematic for applications that require low latency, such as real-time data processing or interactive user interfaces. Latency can be a huge pitfall if the solution is not well architected.
A serverless solution can be difficult to integrate with existing on-prem infrastructure, as they often require significant changes to application architecture and deployment processes. It is important to pay attention to the integration requirements.
The cost can be difficult to manage. While auto scaling is a great feature, if you don’t scale down the infrastructure on the cloud then you could be losing money.

In order to understand how serverless and low/no-code can integrate together, I will dig deeper into the benefits and implementation of low/no-code applications in part two of this series.

To read the original article, please visit: https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/05/02/the-rise-of-serverless-computing-and-lowno-code-applications-part-1/?sh=77e81eb31654