Enterprise digital transformation is now driven through accelerated application delivery enhanced with a cloud-native development model named Serverless. Why? And what can you get from it?
The serverless infrastructure model solves the problem of allocating cloud computing resources and, according to industry experts, is expected to be the future of all cloud computing workloads.
Simply put, such platforms simplify programming, freeing software developers to focus directly on enhancing business outcomes—improved agility and productivity.
With its ability to dynamically scale resources, the serverless application model has captured the attention of businesses at an astonishing rate. The State of Serverless research conducted by Datahog observes that the technology has gained mainstream adoption. More than 50% of customers, including large & mid-size enterprises across industries, use serverless technologies in each cloud platform they operate on.
Insights for leaders who are ready to scale with cloud tech:
- On-Premises vs. Cloud Computing: A Comprehensive Analysis of Benefits, Drawbacks, and Cost Considerations
- Examples of Selecting Technology and Designing Architecture
- A Comprehensive Overview of Cloud Technologies: Players, Markets, Apps, and All the Essentials
- Cloud Solutions for Business Intetics AWS Expertise Pack
Benefits like the Pay-for-Value costing model, eliminating redundant tasks, and working towards innovation and features—can become your growth factors and safeguards to take advantage of in the long run.
Keep reading and find out why businesses opt for moving to serverless infrastructure and explore four core steps of going serverless on AWS.
Why Do Businesses Go Serverless on AWS? Spoiler: Security, Reliability, and Scale for Enterprise-Grade
AWS offers a range of highly available, scalable, and cost-effective services catering to enterprises of all sizes. Let’s take a closer look:
Performance for Enterprises of Any Scale
AWS Lambda, a key serverless service, automatically scales resources based on demand, ensuring optimal performance during high-traffic periods. The event-driven architecture enables enterprises to respond quickly, creating highly responsive systems. AWS provides seamless integrations with other services like databases, storage, and analytics, allowing businesses to leverage a comprehensive ecosystem for enhanced performance.
Related material: What Is a Cloud-Based Solution?
Moreover, by offloading infrastructure management to AWS, enterprises can focus on optimizing their business logic, resulting in improved performance and scalability.
Scale out Globally in Minutes
Businesses can quickly expand their footprint and reach users worldwide. But how? Firstly, AWS serverless tools are designed to be highly available and distributed across multiple regions. Secondly, serverless architectures abstract away the need for managing infrastructure, enabling businesses to focus on developing their application logic. This eliminates the need for provisioning and configuring servers in different regions, significantly reducing the time required for scaling.
Services like Amazon CloudFront and Amazon Route 53 for content delivery and global DNS resolution further enhance the ability to scale globally.
Secure Virtual Networks
Thanks to AWS’s robust security features, secure virtual networks protect business applications and customer data. For example, Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) enables businesses to define isolated virtual networks within their AWS environment. With AWS Lambda, companies can integrate their functions within these VPCs, ensuring secure communication and data flow.
AWS also provides security groups and network access control lists, allowing fine-grained access management at the network level. Additionally, AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) enables businesses to control and restrict permissions for serverless functions, enhancing overall security.
Discover more benefits for your business: Value Proposition of Using Serverless on AWS for Business
What Leaders Say about Serverless Infrastructure and Its Business Impact
As part of the research, IDC analysts interviewed executives from 11 organizations to assess the effects of utilizing the AWS Serverless Platform on various aspects such as IT costs, operations, and business outcomes. The companies surveyed were predominantly large organizations with an average of over 10,000 employees and $7 billion in annual revenue. These organizations were primarily based in the United States and operated in diverse industries, including communications, financial services, manufacturing, online media, real estate, retail, travel, transportation, & logistics.
Interviewed organizations primarily chose the AWS Serverless Platform to provide seamless scalability from both an IT and a business perspective.
Overall, their experiences in AWS represent a diverse mix of business-critical applications, including analytics and modeling, customer service systems, financial reporting, image processing, inventory management, and valuation and risk management workloads.
Leaders reported minimizing the friction that deployment, management, and support of computing and storage resources exert on operations, generating benefits for their IT and business organizations.
One organization highlighted the advantage of swift deployment when comparing it to their on-premises environment: “The AWS Serverless Platform allows developers to rapidly deploy functionality without tangling with servers because the serverless approach is much more modularized. We’re deploying code and not specifying server capacity or anything else. AWS does all that for you, and our developers are about 20% more efficient.”
An organization that transitioned to AWS serverless from another cloud-based solution emphasized the advantage of automatic scaling based on demand for computing and storage resources: “We’ve really benefited from automatic responses to capacity needs with AWS Lambda and the AWS Serverless Platform. Before, we had a capacity of 100 instances, whereas now we have the equivalent capacity of 2,000–3,000 instances per day. Those instances all scale down to pretty much nothing at night or over the weekend, when we don’t have developers doing anything. We were already doing some of that beforehand, but it wasn’t as flexible in terms of being able to scale up and down.”
Another company moving from an on-premises environment cited the ease of deploying compute resources to support development: “We deploy new software with the AWS Serverless Platform, but we don’t have to manage compute deployment because it’s automatic for us. We’ve gone from using internal tools and needing two days to deploy compute to it taking about two minutes with the AWS Serverless Platform.”
Explore more success stories: AWS Consulting Practice Case Studies
Challenges Associated with Serverless Infrastructure and How to Tackle Them
Okay, we got it; this new serverless-first world offers many benefits to cloud users, including automation, cost savings, enhanced performance, and security. Yet, it is not without its challenges:
- Skill gaps and need for expertise. Serverless on AWS demands new skills and knowledge. Teams may need training and upskilling to utilize serverless technologies and make informed architectural decisions effectively. The more cost-effective solution, in that case, is hiring a remote team of certified AWS consultants and engineers.
- Cost management and forecasting. While serverless can offer cost savings, understanding the pricing model and effectively managing costs can be challenging. Accurate cost optimization strategies are necessary to avoid unexpected expenses.
- Monitoring and debugging. Debugging and monitoring serverless functions can be more challenging than traditional architectures. Gaining visibility into function execution, identifying performance bottlenecks, and troubleshooting issues can require specialized tools and techniques.
- Vendor relationship management. Engaging with a cloud service provider like AWS requires effective vendor relationship management. Understanding licensing models and support options and maintaining a productive partnership with AWS can be crucial for long-term success.
However, working with a certified AWS partner can help businesses overcome these challenges and convert them into opportunities to optimize business processes and grow. Certified partners bring expertise in AWS services and best practices, offering guidance and support in navigating organizational challenges, optimizing costs, addressing compliance requirements, and managing vendor relationships. In other words, leveraging the full potential of serverless on AWS: everything required to ensure a smoother transition and maximize the benefits of the technology.
4 Crucial Steps Going Serverless: Discover in the Joint AWS & Intetics Webinar Series
Welcome to watch Intetics and AWS joint webinar series where AWS Sr. Partner Solutions Architects & Sergey Dudal, Intetics PM/Cloud Solution CoE Leader, provide exclusive insights that will help you build secure serverless applications on AWS.
The purpose of this series is to:
- demonstrate that production platforms can be built on top of Serverless architecture,
- show a set of tools that can simplify business processes,
- key features of AWS services,
- and the main things to remember when building serverless platforms in AWS.
Watch the full series on YouTube:
Ready to go Serverless and Make the Most of Your Cloud Infrastructure?
By going serverless, you can unlock a world of opportunities and optimize your cloud environment for enhanced efficiency and cost-effectiveness. Let us care for resource provisioning, scaling, and maintenance, allowing you to scale your business seamlessly. We do not just transfer business processes, organizations, and data to the cloud—we take it further by helping organizations identify, launch, and scale new businesses and create new revenue streams.
As an AWS Advanced Tier Services Partner, we provide solutions from cloud strategy development and cloud architecture design to deployment, serverless infrastructure support, and maintenance. Intetics works with clients every step of the way to ensure that their cloud infrastructure is optimized for efficiency, scalability, and security.
Looking to make the most of cloud technology? Reach out today to explore how we can help your business thrive.
