Serverless Computing
Serverless doesn't mean there are no servers — it means you don't manage them. The provider handles provisioning, scaling, and patching. You write your code and deploy it; the cloud takes care of the rest.
How Serverless Works
┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ SERVERLESS WORKFLOW │
│ │
│ Event occurs │
│ (HTTP request, file upload, DB change, etc.) │
│ │ │
│ ▼ │
│ ┌─────────────┐ │
│ │ Provider │ Automatically: │
│ │ spins up │ 1. Finds compute │
│ │ your code │ 2. Runs your function │
│ └──────┬──────┘ 3. Returns result │
│ │ 4. Shuts down │
│ ▼ │
│ Response sent │
│ │
│ You pay ONLY for execution time │
│ No idle servers = no idle costs │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Key Benefits
No server management: No patching, no capacity planning, no OS updates. The provider handles everything below your code.
Automatic scaling: Functions scale from zero to thousands of concurrent executions automatically based on demand.
Pay per execution: You're charged only for the compute time your code actually uses. No traffic means no cost.
Faster development: Focus entirely on business logic instead of infrastructure.
Serverless Services
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AWS │ Azure │ GCP │
├────────────────────┼─────────────────────┼─────────┤
│ Lambda │ Functions │ Cloud │
│ API Gateway │ API Management │ Functions
│ Step Functions │ Logic Apps │ │
│ EventBridge │ Event Grid │ Pub/Sub │
│ S3 Events │ Storage Events │ Cloud │
│ │ │ Storage │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Common Use Cases
Serverless is perfect for event-driven workloads: image processing on upload, API backends, scheduled tasks (cron jobs), chatbot handlers, IoT data processing, and backend for mobile apps. It's less suitable for long-running processes, real-time gaming servers, or workloads requiring consistent low latency.